Silver Moon

by Barrie, Monica

  Colleen’s blonde hair shimmered; her tanned skin accented Hollingsby’s thin body and ghostlike pallor. But to the two sweat-dampened people, nothing mattered other than their own thoughts.

  After her discovery of their clandestine plans, and the inspiration that had come to her to manipulate these people to her advantage, Colleen had used all of her womanly wiles in an effort to please the nobleman. When he had taken her to his room and started making love to her, she sensed a perversity in his nature and made herself give in to it, doing whatever would make him happy, refusing to think about what it was.

  “Did I please you?” Colleen asked, bending over Hollingsby and flicking her tongue across his nipple.

  “Surprisingly so. Who would have expected it here?”

  “Did I please you a lot?” she asked again, her pale eyes suddenly locking with his. “Did I do everything just the way you wanted?”

  Hollingsby stared at her, thinking about the past three hours. “Perfectly.” With the suddenness of the unexpected, his hand whipped out, catching her hair and twisting it painfully. He dragged her back until she was lying flat, staring at him with wide, frightened eyes. Her full breasts rose and fell rapidly as she tried to control her fear.

  “What do you want?” His voice was hard, his eyes flat.

  Colleen bit back her fear and made her body relax. “I want to help you.”

  “Help me? How can you help me?”

  “You…you said you needed a guide...”

  “You were spying on us!” The hand in her hair tightened. His free hand rose threateningly.

  “I want to get away from here. I want to help you.”

  “What did you overhear?” he asked, loosening his hold only slightly.

  Colleen stared at him for a long moment. Then she smiled. “Enough to know you’re not what you present yourselves to be. That you’re here because of Elyse Louden.”

  As suddenly as Hollingsby had caught her, he released her, laughing as he did so. “You’ve got gall, I’ll say that for you.”

  “And I want a way out of Jamaica.”

  “You think I’m the way out?”

  “You have to be!” she declared vehemently.

  Hollingsby studied the determination on her face. His intuition came into play, and he recognized within her the same grasping needs that were a part of him. He knew that Colleen was just who she said she was, and that he could trust her. “Tell me, can you guide us across the island, take us to Kingston without any planter seeing us?”

  Colleen knew when not to lie. Now was one such time. “No. But I know someone who can—for enough money.”

  “Money will be no problem.”

  “When are you going after her?”

  “When the time is right.”

  “I will help.”

  Hollingsby smiled. “Yes, yes, you will.” This time his smile was very different. His hand stole into her hair, gripping it tightly. His other hand grasped her breast, twisting it cruelly.

  “I’m ready to be pleased again!”

  Colleen looked into his hard, flat eyes. She wet her lips seductively, her entire being excited, fueled not by the man who was about to use her again, but by the thoughts of the revenge she was about to take on Brace.

  *****

  With the waning of their powerfully spent passions, a gentleness stole over them. Brace held Elyse closely, caressing her back with his hand, running his fingers from the nape of her neck to the swell of her rear. His hands never stayed still, his mind the same.

  With her face buried on his chest, the sweet scent of her hair filled his nostrils. Their lovemaking had been a silent, passionate bonding that had carried both of them to another place far away from Jamaica, where loving each other was good and no harm could ever come of it. However, they were back now, and they had to face reality.

  “I fought, I tried not to come after you, but I couldn’t stop myself,” he said truthfully.

  Elyse lifted her head from his chest and gazed into his eyes, her face set in serious lines. “If you had not, then I would have come to you. I cannot bear to be so close to you, having to turn away all the time.”

  “I know,” he whispered. “I know.”

  Elyse shifted and took his hand in hers. She brought it to her mouth and gently kissed the palm. When she did, she tasted blood.

  Looking down, she saw several cuts. “What happened?”

  Brace’s laugh was low, not one of amusement. “Part of my battle with myself.”

  Elyse brought his hand to her mouth, and carefully, slowly, kissed every cut. “There can be no more fighting.” She lowered his hand until it cupped her breast.

  Brace let his hand stay there, covered by her own. Healing heat radiated into his cut palm. “There will not be.”

  It was as if the weight of the world lifted from her shoulders. She smiled hesitantly and her eyes filled with tears.

  Brace, seeing her reaction, pulled away from her. He sat up, but held her gaze with his own. “I’m leaving Jamaica.”

  Elyse’s body froze. Her heart threatened to stop, and her mind began turning black. “Why?” she whispered.

  “You know why.”

  “I’m going with you.”

  “No.”

  “Brace ...”

  “I’m not as strong as I thought. I believed I was strong enough to stay here, to watch over you, to protect you, but I can’t. I’m only a man—a man whose desires overrule his mind.”

  “The hell you are!” Elyse shouted, pulling herself upright. She stood, facing him, uncaring of her nakedness, the moonlight accenting the rise and fall of her breasts. “You’re not just a man, Brace Denham, you are my man!”

  “Who can offer you only shame.”

  “Who can offer me everything I need! Don’t let some foolish idea of pride stop us.”

  “Pride is the one thing that makes me who I am. My pride is the only thing that they can’t take from me. Without it, I would not have survived life here.”

  “Don’t walk away from me, Brace. Don’t do this to us.”

  “I have to, Elyse, it’s that simple.”

  She stared at him, tears spilling from her eyes. She heard the finality of his words, and even as they struck her painfully, her own proud heritage rose to her defense.

  “I love you, Brace, and I am not ashamed of my love. I want you to stay, to be with me, always. I won’t beg. I, too, have my pride. If you must leave, if you cannot live with our love, then I have no chains to hold you.” Elyse bent and picked up the remnants of her dress. Pressing them to her breasts, pulling her shoulders straight, and lifting her head proudly, she turned and walked from the gazebo, aware that Brace’s eyes followed every step she took.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The morning matched Elyse’s mood. Dark clouds filled the horizon, blocking out the golden orb of the sun. The angry crashing of waves upon the sands of Bluefish Bay came through her bedroom window. The birds were silent, the air thick and heavy with humidity.

  Elyse dressed absently, paying little attention to what she put on, even less to the way her face looked, with her red-rimmed and swollen eyes emphasized by the dark circles beneath.

  Leaving her room, she went downstairs, and out onto the veranda where she sat on one of the large wing back cane chairs and stared at the treetops. “Breakfast?” asked one of the servants.

  “Nothing,” Elyse replied. The servant nodded her head and left, recognizing that Elyse wanted to be alone.

  She sat for another half hour, feeling the weight of the loss of her love. She had seen last night that Brace was determined to leave. She’d intuitively known that nothing she could say or do would stop him. His pride, mixed with his love, controlled him—that, and the belief he was doing this for her.

  Has it been just over a month since we found our love? Memories of that day, interspersed with the perfection of last night’s lovemaking, threatened to make her cry again, but she pushed them away and did her best to concentra
te on the future.

  What future?

  “Good morning,” Ann said as she stepped onto the veranda. She had been walking on the path in front of the house when Elyse came out and she saw the tired, expressionless look on her face.

  In the last few weeks, Ann had watched the changes in both Elyse and Brace. She’d divined, with true maternal insight, exactly what had happened between them, yet she had remained silent. Although the pain in her heart for the young lovers was always present, she knew that unless Elyse, or Brace, came to her, there was little she could do to help them.

  Nevertheless, when she saw Elyse sitting so pensively on the veranda, she could no longer hold back. She went to the young woman and spoke. Elyse gazed up at Ann. “It’s a dark morning.” Ann smiled tentatively. “The clouds will pass soon enough.”

  “In the sky perhaps. There are other clouds that mar the day.”

  “You must look past those; look for the sunshine behind them.”

  “I’ve tried, Ann, but all I find are more clouds. Whenever a ray of light comes, the clouds block it off. It’s as if I’m always to be denied what I want in life.”

  Ann shook her head slowly, holding Elyse’s large eyes with her own. “You’ve but lived a small part of your life. There is so much more ahead.”

  “God give me the strength to face it, for if it’s only half as bad as what I’ve lived through, I don’t know that I can continue.”

  Alarmed by her words, Ann quickly replied. “You mustn’t talk that way. You’ve had so much love in your life. How many women can boast of the wealth you have? How many were raised on one of the great estates of England? You were protected there and your childhood was a broadening that your father knew was necessary for you to understand who and what you are.”

  Elyse’s mouth opened to reply, but Ann’s words had evoked all the terrible memories of her childhood in England. “Do you think I care about the wealth? I would trade it all to have been with my father for those last years before he died!” Bitterness welled up within her as she spoke. The hatred for her aunt and uncle, the shame at her own inability to withstand them covered her like water over a drowning sailor. The shame made her want to speak, as the drowning man would want to breathe.

  Elyse rose swiftly, turning her back to Ann and grasping the wooden rail of the veranda. “Yes, because he loved me and wanted to protect me, he sent me to England. He put me into the care of his sister. Oh, at first it was fine. I learned, played, and enjoyed life. Father came to visit me once a year, and for a month, my life was perfect. Nevertheless, he would always leave, and I would always be alone. Then one year, I had just turned eleven, he didn’t come to visit me.” Elyse whirled about, fixing Ann with a penetrating stare. “Did you know that I didn’t learn of my father’s death for six months?”

  Ann couldn’t reply.

  “My dear aunt didn’t tell me. First, she had to make all the arrangements for the guardianship. I didn’t know anything about it! Didn’t you ever wonder why I never wrote? Why I never inquired about Devonairre?”

  Ann nodded her head slowly, her mouth too dry to speak.

  “I did, daily, but Aunt Elizabeth never posted the letters. I was a prisoner in my own home. My aunt and uncle kept me imprisoned for ten years, plundering my father’s estate for everything they could legally take. Never once was I shown an accounting—never once was I asked for an opinion.

  “I had several teachers who gave me my education. Not because my guardians wanted it that way, but because my father’s will made it mandatory.

  “From the time I was fourteen, I was never permitted to be alone, except in my rooms. When I went riding, it was always with someone watching me. I never attended social functions; I never had a friend. My aunt was very clever; she and her husband had made their plans very, very carefully. At fourteen, I began to realize what was happening.” Elyse paused, trying to steady her breathing. She hadn’t meant to tell Ann about this, but the words had come rushing out and she’d been helpless to stop them.

  “You see, Elizabeth married Carl Sorrel shortly after Father founded Devonairre. Carl was titled, but landless. When he married Elizabeth, he agreed to manage the estates in Devon for Father. From that point on, my father supported my aunt and uncle. When he died, and I was in their charge, they decided they should have it all. I’m convinced,” Elyse said in a much lower voice, “that if Devonairre had been left under their executorship, I would not be alive today. For it is Devonairre, and the monies that the plantation earns, that keep the Louden fortune alive.” “Elyse!” Ann gasped.

  “But because it was, and the executorship was irrevocable, stating that in the event of my death, Devonairre would have gone to you and Charles, Elizabeth could not do away with me. Instead, she made plans for something just as horrible.” Elyse closed her eyes and took a deep shuddering breath. “From the time I was fifteen, Elizabeth let it be known that I ‘wasn’t right’. That my father’s death made me weak-minded. No one, except an old, senile neighbor ever came to call on me, and he would have been no help, had I confided in him.

  “I survived because I knew that somehow I would find a way to return home. I almost gave up all hope when Elizabeth informed me of my betrothal to a man who would do her bidding. I was to be married on my twenty-first birthday to Jeremy Hollingsby, the Earl of Heymouth, a penniless aristocrat who had gambled away his money and most of his lands. The day after the wedding, they would force me to claim my inheritance and by law, turn the lands and monies over to my husband, who had agreed with my guardians to the division of the spoils. Whether I lived or not after that, mattered little to them.

  “Three weeks before my birthday and the wedding, an old friend of my father’s came to Devon, Amos McClintock. I was able to tell him what was happening. With his help, I escaped my prison. He ... he was shot while helping me. He died.”

  “Oh, Elyse…” Ann whispered, her heart wrenching for Elyse, saddened by the news of the death of a man she knew very well. “Please, say no more.”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t tell you or Charles, or even Brace, of how I had let them control me. I was afraid that somehow, someway, Elizabeth and Carl would get me back into their grasp again.”

  Ann went to Elyse and pulled her into an embrace, holding her close, even as her own tears fell. “You’re safe now; you’re home. You’re with people who will protect you.”

  Elyse pulled back and laughed. “Protect me? I don’t want protection! I want love!” The moment she’d spat the words out, her hand flew to her mouth, covering it as if she could take back the words she had spoken. “I’m sorry.”

  Ann understood completely. “Brace.” The one word was statement enough.

  “He tells me he loves me and because of that love, he must protect me. He’s leaving Jamaica, leaving me. Is that what love is supposed to be?”

  “For Brace, it is,” Ann admitted. “Elyse, if Brace didn’t love you, he would use you, satisfy himself, and leave you to be held up for the derision of the planters. But because of his love, he won’t allow that to happen.”

  “What about me? I don’t care about the others. I love him. I need him.”

  “Elyse, Charles and I are not blind to what’s been happening. We know you and Brace are in love, and we have prayed that somehow you and he would be able to work your problems out.”

  “If Brace would let us. But he’d rather be noble and leave me.”

  “Because he has been where he would not let you go. He has been the butt of the planters’ hatred. We alone, of all the debtors who came to Jamaica, have risen to threaten the planters’ sacred position. When your father named Charles as the administrator of Devonairre until you returned, it scared them. They retaliated with harsh words and demeaning acts. If you and Brace were to make known your love, they would treat you with even more disdain and make your life a hell on earth.”

  Elyse smiled. “No more than it was before I returned. I survived that.”

  Ann stared a
t the young woman for a long time before finally nodding her head. “Go to him. Tell him what you told me. Perhaps he will see through the curtains he’s placed over his eyes.”

  “I can’t,” Elyse admitted. “It must come from him. He has to be the one to come back to me.” When she finished speaking, she turned to the railing. Ignoring the tears, she gazed out at the trees surrounding the house and lost herself in thought.

  *****

  Seeing her this way, Ann said nothing while her rage at the unfairness of the world, itself, grew out of bounds. Turning, Ann left the veranda and went directly to the west wing, and into her husband’s office.

  When she closed the door behind her, Charles put down his quill and glanced back at her. “We must talk,” she said.

  Charles looked at the set of her face and took in the wetness filming her eyes. “What’s happened?”

  With measured, precise words, Ann told her husband everything. When she finished, she took a deep breath. “What can we do?”

  “What we must.” Charles, rubbing his forehead with his thumb and forefinger, closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he smiled at his wife. “I spoke with Brace this morning before he rode out. He was going to his plantation. I’m going there, also.”

  As he rose, Ann came close to him. Her arms went around him, her lips grazing his. When she drew her head back, she saw the way his eyes sparkled. “You’re going to tell him?”

  “It’s time.”

  “I love you, Husband.”

  “And I thank you for that love, for you’ve made my life worthwhile.” When Ann released him, he smiled at her. “Watch over Elyse.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Brace sat at his desk, looking over the documents he was about to sign. With his signature, he would appoint his overseer to full control of the plantation while he was away.

  He didn’t know for how long, only that there was the possibility that he might never return. When he finished rereading the last document, he lifted the quill and signed his name. All that remained was for him to take the documents to the barrister’s office.