Christie (17 page)

She rose from her chair and moved toward the
door.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Up on deck—that is,
if
it meets with the captain's
approval. The air in here seems to have suddenly
gone bad!"

Garrett's eyes were flint hard. "No, it does not meet with my approval! You know very well that I have limited all traffic on deck for you and Lula to daylight hours, at designated times. For a woman to walk about the deck at night is to invite trouble. My crew is a good enough bunch of lads. But they are men, too, and none of them has been alone with a woman in over a week. You will remain here!"

His tone was sharply domineering and antagonizing in its impact now. Suddenly Christie could bear no more. She had put up with as much abuse from him as she felt she could and that had been coupled with long days of confinement and boredom on the voyage. Finally, she simply didn't care to watch her tongue any longer. Emotions pent up for days found their vent.

"You despicable wretch! Is it not enough that you have kidnapped me, taken me against my will to a far-off port, after robbing me of that which was mine only to give once—my honor—but that now, beyond such initial offenses, you find it necessary to compound them by brutalizing me with your tongue as well as your body, and then see fit to keep me from that one final refuge of the wretched—solitude? Well, let me tell you something
ray fine
Captain Randall, I hope that bloody enterprise which takes you to your precious New York is a miserable
failure!
I hope you
never
see it through! I hope you rot in hell, you—" If she hadn't been so intent upon finding phrases caustic enough to damn him, Christie might have caught the look in his eye as Garrett listened to her, but as it was, she missed it, and suddenly he had
sprung from his seat at the table and crossed to where she stood in two easy strides. Grabbing her by both shoulders, he began to shake her violently; so violently, in fact, that the pins holding her hair came loose, and it tumbled about her shoulders while her teeth rattled in her head.

"Little bitch! You will never—ever utter words that deny me favor on the matter of this work I am about! If I hear any such from your vicious mouth again, lady, I will not be responsible for the consequences! Do you comprehend my meaning?
Do you?"

Christie's face had gone ashen under the assault, and her eyes were wild with fear, but somewhere, from her last reserve of pride and the desperate need she felt to maintain some inner portion of that freedom of spirit she had always held as inviolately her own, she hurled back at him, "I curse your mission— Yes, a pox on it!" And she spat in his angry face.

With a sound akin to the snarl of some wild beast in pain, Garrett raised his hand and struck her fully across the face, sending her head back like a puppet's out of control, and she stumbled and fell to the floor from the force of the blow.

Finding himself out of control for the first time in years of careful schooling to keep his emotions in check, Garrett was stunned by his own reaction. He had never hurt a woman—never considered it before—and the sight of her lying there, crumpled in a heap with an angry welt beginning to form on her cheek was enough to confuse and unsettle him. After staring at her for several long seconds, he grabbed his
jacket from the peg where it hung and, slinging it over his shoulder, stormed out.

Lula was making her way to the cabin at the time, having had word of their argument from Jasper; when she met Garrett outside the door, she was told more by the look on his face than his words.

"Keep her out of my sight until we dock, understand? On peril of your job, Lula! Out of my sight!"

And he swept by her and went quickly up on deck.

Lula hurried into the cabin, half-expecting what she found there, half-expecting worse.

"Chile, chile, you musta done sumpin' to reach him good dis time—dat man look lahk he got de devil hisse'f on his back! Don' move so fas', now. Easy, baby, easy. Lawd! Look lahk Lula gonna need some co'd compressions fo' dat face o' yo's."

And again, as before, it was Lula who helped patch together Christie's bruised body while she did what she could to ease her pain inside as well.

Chapter Twelve

They made New York days later, docking shortly before noon in a steady downpour of early summer rain. Garrett immediately went about finding a suite of rooms in a respectable hotel on the eastern side of Manhattan. The place he chose was named The Duchess, and they were registered as Mr. and Mistress Garrett Randall. If Christie found this distasteful or annoying, she got no chance to mention it because Lula was taking no chances on a recurrence of hostilities between her employer and the young woman she'd come to regard as a friend. That tiny black creature saw to it that Garrett's order to keep Christie away from him was carried out to the letter, and then some. Letting Garrett and Jasper unload and quarter the horses, it was Lula alone who accompanied her young charge to their rooms, taking a hired carriage for the ride from the
Marianne.

The Duchess was a hotel constructed after the architecture of some French houses of the period, the owner having been born abroad before emigrating to
New York shortly after the American Revolution. Its rooms were large and well appointed, there being six comprising the suite: two large bedchambers, a dressing room, a large sitting room, and two smaller bedrooms for Lula and Jasper. Lula explained the absence of Mistress Randall's baggage by saying it was being sent from the ship. This she planned to cover, for she had already prevailed upon Garrett to see the necessity of buying his "wife" some suitable garments—quickly—and had on her person when they arrived, more than enough money to take care of the matter. If the man at the desk questioned Christie's arriving from a sea voyage in a riding habit—expertly repaired by Lula's capable fingers— he made no mention of it to anyone. He was given to understand the young couple were on their honeymoon, and if they acted slightly strange, why, who could blame them?

It was midafternoon when Lula went out with her son and a headful of Christie's measurements to visit the premises of one of New York's finest makers of ladies' apparel. There she explained that she was acting on behalf of her young mistress who was ill and could not be present to select a new wardrobe to replace the one which had been lost in transport. She was successful in obtaining four garments immediately with some six additional to be ready in. two days. The finished garments, together with all appropriate accessories, she took with her in the hired carriage, letting Jasper lug the boxes that were piled higher than his head.

"Now, Jasper, don' you drop nothin', boy! We done spent a whole heap o' de cap'n's money on dis
stuff—hee! hee! Alraht, man—" This to the carriage
dr
iver, a fellow freedman— "Now fin' me a place a whut sells luggage 'n trunks!"

So they bought some appropriate-looking bags
and the like to put Christie's new clothes in and then
drove them down to the
Marianne,
where a puzzled
M
r. Baxter was asked to send them—in one big hurry—to The Duchess.

It was six o'clock by the time they returned to the hotel, arriving shortly after Mistress Randall's baggage, and when she saw what Lula had accomplished,
Ch
ristie laughed for the first time in days, her sore jaw aching as she did so.

Garrett had not arrived yet. No one knew exactly where he had gone, except that it appeared to be on urgent business, so Christie had met Lula in the sitting room where she had spent the afternoon reading
Gulliver's Travels,
a book she had found aboard ship. She laid the book down gladly—certain passages made it clear why Charles had not made it available to her at Windreach—and rushed to receive Lula with an affectionate hug.

"Oh, Lula, I'm so glad you're back. You don't know how lonely I felt while you were gone. How I dote on your company!"

And suddenly a sad look crossed her face.

"Lula! I'll never see you again after I leave for home! How can we let that happen?"

"Don' go fig'rin' t' lose li'l Lula dat easy, honey! Ah specs yo' daddy kin use a good paih o' black han's aroun' his place, don' you?"

A broad smile of delight broke across Christie's countenance.

"Oh, yes! Yes! You'll come with'me. then? And Jasper, too? Oh, Lula! You're wonderful!"

"Whut's wundahful is de mess o' fahn clothes ah done bought you, baby. Come along, now, an' try dem on t' see!"

And she whisked her off to Christie's bedchamber while Jasper was told to ready a bath in the dressing room next door.

When Christie saw the lavishness of the gowns her new friend had selected, she gasped, but when the pronouncement of their cost was accompanied by a wicked look of pure mischief on Lula's face, she laughed so hard, tears came and she had to wince from the ache this caused her bruised jaw.

Lula was laughing too, and it was this muffled sound of merriment from the inner chambers that greeted Garrett as he entered the suite.

The afternoon had gone well for him. He had called at the offices of The New World Trading Company and found that Mr. William Harper, while out of town at the moment, would be back tomorrow and most likely be glad to meet with him. Harper was now chief shareholder in that firm and would have access to all old records as well as to his own memory of the events in which he himself had played a part. Things were at least off to a favorable start.

He had arranged for Thunder and Jet to be quartered in the hotel's own stables and, almost as an afterthought, had gone back to the ship to see about having his own baggage sent to The Duchess. This, he was told, had been arranged when the young lady's trunks were forwarded. Puzzled, he had finally decided that the maneuverings and mental workings
o
f his new womanservant were as devious as any woman's and probably second only to those of her young mistress as something to be dealt with suspiciously.

Now, as he listened to the laughter coming from the chamber beyond his own, he made a mental note to keep those suspicions in good working order as he stepped in that direction.

He opened the door to find Christie whirling gracefully before a long mirror while Lula tried, unsuccessfully, to place a few extra hairpins in the wheaten curls piled loosely atop her moving head. Covering Christie's slender figure was the most pre-Revolutionary beguiling piece of finery he'd ever set eyes on. The gown was in the new fashion influenced by the democratic rumblings of pre-Revolutionary France, dictated by an interest in less overdone artifice and greater freedom of movement. It was, therefore, without panniers or stays and concocted of many layered yards of sheer fabric which sheathed the body in a narrow silhouette that appeared soft as gossamer. The color was a deep midnight blue, so lark it appeared almost black, and against Christie's creamy skin, the contrast was striking. A wide satin sash worn tightly about the midriff underscored a soft upper bodice that barely managed to contain her high, rounded breasts, which were allowed to assume their natural shape beneath the soft folds of fabric. As she now bent to adjust a fold in the hemline, most of what was concealed there came into view, causing Garrett to blanch at the exposed flesh. It was a gown intended for a woman of some sophistication and
chic,
and it at once transformed its wearer along these
lines, as Lula had known it would.

Forcing himself to tear his eyes away from the seductively curving swells of flesh above the low decolletage, Garrett took a deliberate deep breath before he spoke.

"I see you've wasted no time in availing yourself of the funds I set aside for such uses." His voice was laden with sarcasm.

Christie, who hadn't noticed him come in, whirled to face him, her face still aglow from the merriment of moments before. She decided to ignore his tone. "Look, Garrett, Lula picked this out for me. Doesn't she have
wicked
taste?"

The emphasis was not unintentional, for the very cause of their humor the moment before Garrett had entered had been Lula's declaration that it might do him good to see Christie in clothes deliberately chosen to make him sorry she was leaving—without him—forever.

Now, at her words the two women recalled the source of their humor and burst out laughing all over again—Lula's gaiety emanating in a low throaty chuckle suggestive of a person twice her size, Christie's rippling out
in
a long peal of tinkling mirth which spread its musical sound merrily through the room.

Garrett was momentarily caught up in the realization that he'd not really heard her laugh before, and he wondered why that should bother him now. Then, as he was pretending not to notice her at all, out of the corner of his vision he caught Christie's grimace from the pain laughing brought to her jaw. Although, in repose, it didn't show any swelling or
distortion, upon closer inspection, when she moved it, as now, it revealed considerable damage done to delicate flesh.

Silently he cursed himself for his lack of control two evenings before, and in a subdued tone, asked his question. "Now that you have something to wear, do you feel up to having supper out? I've discovered inn which serves good food, not too far from here."

Christie looked at Lula, who was about to
d
isappear into the dressing room to see about the
fin
al preparations for Christie's bath, and the black
wo
man gave her an almost imperceptible nod as she
exited.

"Why, yes, thank you, Garrett. If you'll allow me a ion time to bathe and dress, I can be ready in less than an hour ... if that suits?" She finished by jiving him a soft half-smile that he found utterly switching, and therefore troubling. Gruffly, he said, "See that it's not longer," and then, as if reconsidering his mood, in a softer voice, "Christie, I . . . ask you to forgive me for hurting you the other night. Though born of an uncontrolled and emotionally charged moment, it was an inexcusable action. I can promise you it will never happen again id I'm sorry—sorrier than you can imagine." He intoned the words slowly, as if groping for them. He had never apologized to a woman before, and it was not without effort that he now found the words. Then, as if in an attempt at covering his awkwardness, he rushed on. "You'll be leaving soon. I thought we'd spend the time over supper composing the message to your father. But, beyond
that, I'd—like to suggest that we put aside our differences for the time remaining and try to make it as pleasant as possible under the circumstances. I'm willing to try, if you'll agree."

Listening as much to the change in his tone as to the words, Christie, who had been feeling the strain of their hostile relationship as greatly as he, now gave him as much of a smile as her sore jaw would permit, and answered readily.

"Oh, yes! I'd like that!" And turning to join Lula in the dressing room, she added gaily over one dainty shoulder, "I'll try to make it
half an
hour!" Then, almost with a bounce, she was gone.

Exactly half an hour later, a bathed and perfumed Christie met him in the sitting room, ready to leave. Over the deep blue gown she had on the long velvet cloak Lula had purchased in a matching shade, and as she carefully raised the loosely fitting hood over her high-piled, Grecian-styled hair, Garrett came forward to take her arm.

"You are beautiful," he said simply. "Come, I'm going to enjoy showing you off."

He had also bathed, and was shaved carefully for the occasion, and Christie smiled as she took in the magnificent figure he presented in
formal clothes. Above the impeccably tied white cravat, his bronzed features suggested a chiseled strength and savage beauty that played counterpoint to the civilized details of his garments. He wore a waistcoat of black silk, topped by a double-breasted coat of deep-claret-colored velvet, which fitted snugly about his lean waist. Once again, she noticed, he chose high, narrow boots over the almost dainty, pointed-
toed shoes some of the more foppish men of fashion were sporting at that time. His tight-fitting breeches were of a soft, dove gray and she was not beyond remembering the power of the loins they covered.

They made a breathtakingly handsome couple as they left in the carriage Garrett had hired, and this was borne out by the heads which turned to follow them as they were seated at the inn.

At supper Garrett put forth his most charming self, taking special care to tend to her every need or whim, from ordering a wine he remembered enjoying at Charles's table, to amusing her with little anecdotes, some of which included tales of boyish pranks involving him and Jesse in their early years.

Since she had never heard him mention much of his family before, Christie listened with special attention to the latter. At a point in one particularly humorous account of how Jesse had had to dive headlong into a pond, fully clothed, to avoid the anger of bees whose honey he had been pilfering, Christie interrupted him.