Desire in the Sun

by Karen Robards

  Betsy hooted inelegantly. "If you say so, Miss Lilah. But you know and I know you're only fooling yourself. Ladies and maids, we're all alike under the skin-we're women."

  The slaves, finally done with their exercising for the day, slogged past, chains clanking as they headed toward the hatchway. Lilah averted her eyes to avoid looking at Joss, now chained securely at the end of the line. Betsy's eyes sharpened.

  "You telling me you didn't feel like that with him?" Betsy asked softly, watching Lilah's face with keen knowledge. "You forget, Miss Lilah, I've known you since you was a little girl. And I saw how happy and excited you were, changing into something 'ravishing' for him. You ain't ever been like that before or since! All right, he wasn't the right man for you either, but if you could feel that way about him you could feel that way about another man one day. Don't just settle for Mr. Kevin 'cause you think he's safe! Settling's for old women and old hens, not for a pretty young lady like you!"

  "I'm not settling! And I don't want to discuss it anymore!"

  "All right, bury your head in the sand if you want to! Me, I've got work to do!"

  With a sniff, Betsy took herself off, leaving Lilah to brood. Secretly she feared that there was more than a grain of truth to what Betsy said. Kevin's gentlest kiss did nothing more than rouse in her a desire to wipe her mouth. The one he had tried to give her the previous night had brought with it a tide of revulsion so strong that it had made her feel physically ill. She was not a child; she had a fair idea of what the physical side of marriage entailed. She had just never before taken the time to apply that knowledge to herself and Kevin. Could she let him kiss her like that for the rest of her life, or permit him the kind of intimacies married people shared, the exact details of which were a trifle vague in her mind but she knew involved sharing a bed and begetting children? Could she stand his hands on her naked flesh, not just once or twice but night after night after night for the Lord knew how many years? Lilah actually shivered at the thought. But then her mind ran over all the other men who had begged for her hand over the years, and she realized she couldn't bear the idea of their hands on her either. The only man she'd ever felt the slightest response to was…

  She shut her eyes at the shameful image. The only man whose touch she thought she might have been able to bear was at that moment chained in the hold with the rest of the slaves Kevin had bought for Heart's Ease.

  Her heart lightened fractionally as an idea occurred to her. Once she was safely home again at Heart's Ease, she might speak to her father about freeing Joss. If Kevin was right, he would probably be nothing but trouble, worse than the Africans brought straight from their mother country to work the fields. Leonard Remy refused to have gullahs on the place. Without generations of slavedom behind them to make them docile, gullahs were too unpredictable, he said. They frequently tried to escape, and were capable of stirring up unrest amongst the other slaves with their hankering for freedom.

  Her father wouldn't be hard to convince, she thought, as long as he did not get hold of the idea that she wanted the man freed because she was attracted to him. Which was, of course, an entirely ridiculous idea. She wanted him freed because he was a human being like herself. That that might also apply to Betsy and twenty other slaves at Heart's Ease she refused to consider. This man had no business being enslaved, and should be set free. Once he had his freedom, he would depart from Heart's Ease and Barbados and she need never see him again.

  The sun had almost disappeared beneath the horizon, and it was getting increasingly colder by the rail. Lilah shivered. Her dress was long-sleeved, but the thin muslin was no protection against the brisk sea wind. Perhaps she should not have been so swift to turn away Amanda's shawl-but she couldn't wear it. Not after what her great- aunt had done to Joss… There he was again, in her thoughts. Did everything have to remind her of him?

  X

  ''There you are. I was beginning to worry about you. I thought you would be in your cabin by now, but Betsy said she hadn't seen you since she left you up on deck. I certainly didn't expect to find you still up here in the dark."

  Kevin stepped out onto the deck just as Lilah was about to go below. The wind immediately caught his hair and blew it around his face, making him look like a hearty seaman with his broad, weathered face. Despite his stocky build and lack of fashionable accoutrements, he was an attractive man. She smiled warmly at him in the soft glow of the lanternlight that spilled over them both from the passageway behind him. She was fond of Kevin, and she saw absolutely no reason why, after marriage, she should not grow to love him. She knew him well; he would hold no surprises for her, and that was a good thing. Starry-eyed dreams of romance were not going to get in the way of what she knew was the right decision. If Kevin's kisses did not appeal to her-well, it was very likely that she would grow accustomed to them. After all, physical intimacy with a man was very new to her. She could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times a man had kissed her mouth, and Kevin accounted for most of them.

  "I was watching the sunset," she said, accepting the arm he offered and allowing him to help her down the stairs. The passenger cabins were just below the main deck. Roughly a dozen of them provided lodging for perhaps twenty-seven or twenty-eight travelers bound for Barbados. Some of them Lilah knew. Irene Guiltinan ran a dress shop in Bridgetown, and John Haverly owned a smallholding near Ragged Point, which was fairly close to Heart's Ease. Like herself, they were returning from visits to the Colonies. Others, whom she didn't know, were bound for Barbados for various reasons that she didn't trouble herself about. After the voyage, she would probably never see them again. The big planters such as her father lived in a kind of splendid isolation, open only to others like themselves and those who served them.

  "I'm glad you're not still angry with me." They had almost reached the door to her cabin. Lilah stopped walking and turned to look at Kevin as he spoke. Light from a wall-mounted lantern illuminated each end of the walnut-paneled passage, but the center, where they stood, was in deep shadow. The narrow passageway was deserted, and except for the creaking of the ship, silent. This was the closest they were likely to come to any privacy aboard ship.

  "I want to apologize again for my behavior last night. I'm afraid that your beauty quite went to my head. I know I frightened you, and I promise it won't happen again. Well, at least not until you're ready." He added this last with a quick, almost disarming smile.

  "You don't have to apologize, Kevin." Lilah took a step closer to him and put her hand on his arm. It was firm and muscular through the fine wool of his coat, and she fought against making the inevitable comparison. This was the man who would be her husband, and this was the man who must fill her thoughts. She was determined it be so. "I was as much at fault as you. I should not have reacted as I did. Being kissed is rather new to me, you see."

  He grinned, his hazel eyes twinkling down at her. "Well, I should hope so," he said, and lifted her hand to his lips. "We'll go slow," he promised, and kissed her fingers with a pretty display of gallantry that was totally at odds with his bluff appearance. Lilah, though she tried her best, felt not the smallest tingle. The contact was certainly more pleasant than when Mr. Calvert had slavered over her hand; on the other hand, it did not nearly compare with…

  "May I kiss you, Lilah? Properly? I won't if you'd rather I didn't."

  He sounded so much in earnest, so intent on winning his way back into her good graces, that she had not the heart to deny him.

  "It's all right. Go ahead," she said, closing her eyes and lifting her face. Her lips remained primly closed, a silent reminder that he was not to take the privilege too far. She waited.

  Kevin bent his head to press his lips to hers. The kiss was soft and not unpleasant. Lilah did not pull away, or repulse him in any way. Eyes tightly shut, she concentrated, willing the feeling to come-but it would not. His kiss meant no more than a kiss she might have received from any relative of whom she was moderately fond. It was just as she had told Bet
sy-ladies did not have feelings like that. And if she had, once, she must not remember it.

  "That wasn't so bad, was it?" Kevin asked when he lifted his head. A slight smile curved his lips. Lilah could see that he was feeling mighty pleased with himself. He had enjoyed the kiss, and the knowledge cheered her a little. At least he seemed to find nothing lacking in her response. That he could be content with so little augured well for the success of their marriage.

  "It was very nice," she told him, patting his arm as one would to humor a nice child. Looking down at her, his smile broadened and his hands, which had been rest- ing lightly on her waist, slid clear around her. To Lilah's dismay he bent his head to repeat the exercise, more lingeringly this time. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth and endured. At least he wasn't devouring her with his mouth as he had tried to do the night before…

  "Oh, Lord Jesus, somebody help me! Millard's took bad!" A woman erupted from her cabin three doors down the passage, her pale face lined with fright and her gray hair untidy. Lilah remembered that her name was Mrs. Gorman, and she was traveling with her husband and grown daughter. At the interruption, Kevin lifted his mouth from hers, his arms dropping from around her waist as he took a quick step backwards. Lilah, secretly relieved to be freed so opportunely, turned toward the woman who was hurrying toward them.

  "What's wrong, Mrs. Gorman? Is your husband ill?" Lilah caught the other woman's arm when she would have rushed past them. Only then did Mrs. Gorman seem to become aware of their presence in the passageway. Her eyes, before they focused on Lilah, were wild.

  "Aye, he is, and it's Dr. Freeman I'm needin'! Let me go, please, I've got to fetch him!"

  "Kevin-Mr. Talbott-will find him for you, if you like. If you want to return to your husband in the meantime, I'll be glad to accompany you."

  "You're a sweet gel. I've said it to Millard more than once during this trip."

  Taking that distracted compliment for assent to Lilah's plan, Kevin nodded and stepped briskly away. Mrs. Gorman turned back down the passageway, so agitated that she hardly knew what she was doing. Lilah followed, though she was not sure that Mrs. Gorman was even aware that she was behind her.

  From the woman's terror, Lilah expected her husband to be in extremus, but she did not expect the terrible stench of uncontrolled diarrhea, or the pools of vomit that had long since overflowed every available container and lay in puddles near the bunk where the skeletal Mr. Gorman lay. Obviously he had been sick for some hours before Mrs. Gorman had summoned help. His daughter-a too-thin spinster whose first name Lilah thought was Doris-was sitting on the edge of his bunk wiping his mouth. Lilah's stomach turned over, but both women looked at her so hopefully that she could not follow her first instinct to flee. Trying to control her revulsion, Lilah stepped carefully toward the bunk, holding her skirt well clear of the floor.

  "Oh, Mum, did you get the doctor? Da needs him sore bad."

  Miss Gorman's wailing question was punctuated by loud gasps from the man in the bunk. As his daughter leaned over him and Mrs. Gorman ran to his side, Mr. Gorman sat bolt upright in bed, gasping for air. Then he fell back against his pillows like a collapsed balloon.

  "Is he dead?"

  "No, Mum, look, he's breathing. Oh, we need the doctor!"

  "He's coming," Lilah murmured reassuringly, her horrified eyes moving over Mr. Gorman. If he was not yet dead, he was surely near death. He lay unmoving, his face drained of all color, his emaciated body drenched in sweat. Only by looking closely could Lilah detect the faint movement of his chest that proclaimed he still lived.

  "What can we do?" Mrs. Gorman asked hopelessly. Lilah was just wondering how she was going to answer that pitiful question when Kevin arrived with Dr. Freeman.

  "What's this now?" Dr. Freeman asked as he entered, his black bag in one hand, only to be brought up short by the scene before him. Short, heavyset and plainly dressed, he had a skimpy gray beard and a bald head. Spectacles were perched on the edge of his nose.

  Lilah stepped back, thankful to leave the whole horrible situation in Dr. Freeman's capable hands. She was very much afraid that Mr. Gorman was going to die…

  Dr. Freeman shooed her from the room, and Kevin with her. Kevin was frowning as they walked back down the passageway toward Lilah's cabin.

  "What do you think is wrong with him?" she asked, having no idea herself. She had never done much nursing, in fact did not like to be around sick people. Jane did the nursing on Heart's Ease, and she was glad to have it so.

  "I don't know," Kevin answered, his voice deep with worry. Lilah looked up at him sharply. Before she could question him further she heard the sound of a door opening behind them. Looking back, she saw Dr. Freeman step out into the passage, shaking his head. Behind him, framed in the doorway, stood Mrs. Gorman, pale and shaking. He said something to her, shook his head in reply to a question Lilah could not hear, and turned away, coming toward them. Just one look at his face told Lilah that something was very wrong indeed.

  "What is it, Doctor?" Kevin asked, his voice tight as though he was almost afraid of the answer.

  Dr. Freeman came up to them, and studied Kevin over the top of his spectacles. He looked very tired, far more tired than ten minutes in a sickroom warranted.

  "Cholera," the doctor answered briefly, pushing by them. Lilah had no trouble at all recognizing the emotion in his voice. It was stark fear.

  XI

  Three days later, the ship was a floating death trap. The cholera had spread amongst the passengers and crew erratically. Nearly a third of the seventy-odd souls aboard were ill. Four, including Mr. Gorman, were already dead. The able-bodied were divided into two camps: Those who feared the disease but whose conscience or feelings for the stricken drove them to nurse the ill anyway, and those who had forced a quarantine on the sick, and refused to go anywhere near the half of the ship that was given over to them. As the illness advanced each day, striking down its victims seemingly at random no matter what they did to avoid contagion, the quarantine seemed a waste of time. But it was strictly upheld for as long as possible.

  Despite her early exposure to Mr. Gorman, Lilah had not so far been stricken. With Betsy at her side she worked tirelessly, soon growing immune to the hideous sights and smells, to the pained whimperings of the ill and the dying and their survivors. The stench of the horrible rice-water diarrhea that was the hallmark of the disease seemed to stretch from one end of the ship to the other. By the seventh day she hardly noticed it anymore.

  At least she was able to get up on deck. The slaves, as afflicted by illness as the rest, were confined to the hold. The well among them were recruited to nurse the sick, but conditions in the hold were hideous. Finally, as the disease took its toll, the able-bodied slaves were released from their confinement to do what they could about the ship, which in most cases was not a lot. Most of the slaves had never even been aboard a ship before. Their labors had to be strictly supervised, and with half the crew stricken by the disease and the other half terrified, competent supervision was hard to come by.

  Joss was the exception to the general uselessness of the slaves as replacements for the stricken sailors. Having been a sailing man all his adult life and later the captain of his own ships, he was able to take the place of at least three of the crewmen. Lilah saw him everywhere, up in the rigging setting canvas, in the crow's nest wielding a spyglass, on the quarterdeck reading the sextant as he assisted Captain Boone to chart their position and plot the course for the nearest landfall, which was their only hope of salvation. He was unfettered, released from his chains because of Captain Boone's personal request to Kevin, and seemed tireless. He never spoke to Lilah, though they brushed past one another occasionally as each went about their duties. In fact, he did not even seem aware of her, and Lilah was content to have it so. Whatever spark had once flared between them had been extinguished by circumstance, and in truth she was so tired and so frightened that keeping her mind off him was not as difficult as it might have been under
better conditions. Though they were less than three weeks out of Barbados, Dr. Patterson had urged Captain Boone to change course for the nearest port. Haiti was to the south, and it was toward Haiti that the Swift Wind headed. But then the wind died to a whisper and the ship slowed to a scant two knots… It began to look as though few of them would reach port. Men, women and children were dropping like flies, and dying within days.

  Kevin came down with the sickness on the ninth day. Lilah nursed him with a tireless devotion that owed far more to their long acquaintance than to the love she should have borne her fianc6. By the twelfth day she was worn to a shade, thin and so exhausted that she could sleep leaning up against a wall. More than two- thirds of those who were stricken were gone within three days. Kevin passed that milestone, and the vomiting and diarrhea lessened. As the fourteenth day dawned and Kevin was still with them, weak but mending, Lilah and Betsy looked at one another in weary triumph over his sleeping form, too tired to even smile. Then they went on to nurse another victim.

  The bodies of the dead were buried at sea. Each evening at sunset the bedraggled contingent of survivors not needed to nurse the sick gathered at the rail in the lee of the main mast. A prayer was said, and the names of the dead were called out as they were heaved over the side. It was a sketchy funeral, and Lilah was not the only one who felt it, but those who still lived were simply too weary to cope with much more.

  The good weather held until the evening of the fifteenth day. Then, toward sunset, ominous dark clouds blew in to obscure the horizon. Lilah was too tired to notice, but Betsy, though as worn as her mistress, called her attention to the lowering sky as they struggled across the deck, each weighted down with a pair of buckets brimming with slop to be emptied over the side.