Christie (20 page)

"Christie?"

With a small cry, she flew across the space between them, throwing herself into his embrace, and she felt his own big arms warp fully around her.

Then they were kissing again, with a passion she had not known possible, and again he led her to the bed that was all crumpled from their love-making of the night before. This time they spent little time on the softer preliminaries, making love with a full blown passion that knew no limits, until at last they lay in each other's arms, sated and replete.

"You little minx," he whispered. "I can see I'm going to get very little done with you near."

And when she went to move away from him, he pulled her close, biting her ear as he growled, "Don't you dare! When I want you to leave, I'll let you know! Trouble is," he chuckled, "I don't know if I'll
ever be able to do that, truthfully." Christie snuggled in closer to his warmth.

With a sigh he said, "Damn it! Barnaby is due at the hotel in less than two hours. What a dolt I was to tell him to come so soon!"

Then he looked down at her and grinned. "Think we can tear ourselves away from each other long enough to dress and make ourselves decent?" he asked.

Her turquoise eyes appearing very blue and wide, Christie dimpled and looked up at him. "I don't know. Suddenly I'm finding our state of undress
entirely decent!"

"Temptress!" he mocked laughingly at her. "Looks like the only way I'm going to be safe from your wiles is to put you out of reach!"

Moving quickly, he picked her up and, slinging her over his shoulder, marched out of his chamber with her, pausing only briefly before entering the sitting room to see if Jasper or Lula were about, all the while laughing loudly at her mock shrieks and thrashings.

"Garrett," she giggled. "Put me down. We're not dressed—somebody might come!"

"There's only one thing to do with a pretty baggage like you," he said as they reached her own chamber. "Put her in her place!"

And with that, he tossed her upon her own bed, following her there himself. They wrestled gaily amid shrieks and playful shouts, tangling themselves in her long hair.

Finally, their excitement abated, he gave her a stern, mock-angry look. "Madam, if you would not
have us appear total, unmannered clods, you will unfasten your arms from about my neck and allow me to dress so we may travel to greet our coming guest."

His own arms were still wound tightly about her slim waist.

"If you will unhand me, sir," she giggled, "I promise to do the same."

"Done," he said and stood up. Heading back toward his own chambers, he turned to give her one last admonition, a wicked gleam in his eye as he gazed upon her shapely, unclothed form on the bed.

"And if you value any semblance of proper behavior from me, madam, pray be sure to dress in something . . . prim and modest." And, in a louder voice thrown in the direction of Lula's room, he added, "Make sure Lula knows what I mean!"

Then, giving her a wink, he closed the door and made his way, whistling, back to his chamber. The door had no sooner closed when Lula entered from the other door adjoining the dressing room.

"Dat man sho' can make hisse'f heard," she said, eying Christie's state of undress. Then she gave her young friend a happy grin. "Looks lahk ah'll have t' spen' a who' lotta time puttin' yo' back in yo' clothes from now on!"

Christie blushed hotly, then turned to face her fully. "Lu! I have to tell you something—"

"Don' tell me, baby. Ah already knows. Ah kin see it in yo' eyes." Her voice became soft with understanding. "You loves him, don' you, chile?"

Christie nodded; but at the same instant, tears came to her eyes. "But Lula I don't know if—if he—"

She broke off, unable to say the doubting words.

"Ah reckon you won' fo' a whahl, honey. Wid a man lahk dat, dis love business take tahm. He don' know hisse'f yet, ah figgah. Tahm, chile, it gonna take tahm."

Then, deliberately changing the subject to evoke a less somber mood, "Now, let me git yo' baf ready whahl you look fo' a dress t' weah from de rest o' dose ah bought. Ah had dem sent heah from de shop dis mornin' while you wuz . . . sleepin'."

So Christie bathed and dressed. She chose as demure an outfit as she could find from among those Lula had purchased, a ruffled pink organdy with full, wide sleeves. As the day had grown warm, she required no wrap, and so with only the addition of a fichu and a chip straw bonnet tied with a wide pink satin bow under her chin, Christie was ready to meet her husband and travel to The Duchess.

Garrett awaited them downstairs in the entryway, and when Christie came upon him there as she made her way down the stairs, her heart ached with its newly acquired emotional burden.

He looked handsomer than ever, and oh, so dashing in a russet jacket, deep green breeches and mahogany boots. When he spotted her approach, he threw her a full, wide smile and his green eyes met hers in open warmth, causing Christie to go weak at the knees.

Swallowing hard, she smiled back at him and in an instant he was at her side, one arm tightly about her waist.

"You look like an angel," he whispered in her ear
before ushering her outside to the waiting carriage.

Then, after profuse thanks to the Van Loons, they were on their way to The Duchess. During the ride Garrett remained very close to his wife, his arm never leaving her waist, while Lula and Jasper, sitting across from them, kept their gazes conspicuously focused on the scenery outside the carriage windows.

Again, the trip was a silent one, with no one making conversation, but Christie's head whirled with a dizzying array of conflicting emotions.

Her thoughts alternated between leaps of joy at the newly found love in her heart for this man at her side and the repeated warnings of a little voice deep within that cried, "Beware—foolish is one who gives her heart where naught is bestowed in return!" Again and again, she was torn with the desire to confront Garrett with her doubts, wondering if she could last a second longer without knowing how he felt. But the fear of gaining an answer she couldn't bear to hear, even imagine hearing, kept her silent and victim to a growing pain which gnawed from within.

At one point the carriage took a sharp turn to the right, throwing her solidly against Garrett's chest, and he took the opportunity to bend and press his lips against the hair that curled beneath her bonnet, at her neck, and murmur to her, "Christie-love . . . sweet."

Christie's senses went giddy again at his words and his touch, and for the moment, her doubts were stilled.

At last they reached the hotel and, relieved to find Barnaby had not yet arrived, they hastened up to
their suite.

Once there, Christie and Lula retired to Christie's chambers to freshen up—the roads had been dusty, despite the rains of a couple of days before—and Garrett prepared to greet Barnaby in the sitting room.

As Lula was rearranging Christie's hair, they heard the sounds of someone being admitted to the outer chambers and, assuming it to be Barnaby, Christie urged Lula to hurry.

Then, while Lula went to see about having a late breakfast sent up, Christie moved to enter the sitting room. As she neared the door, she could hear her husband's voice.

"And that, Mr. Rutledge, is why I am so anxious to know all you can tell me about the kinds of business ventures my father may have been involved in twenty years ago, especially in those last weeks before he died."

"It's very important to you, isn't it Mr. Randall?" Barnaby's tone was matter-of-fact.

"It is my sole reason for living, sir. Long ago, when I made myself that promise, I closed out all other avenues of existence for myself."

Garrett spoke the words automatically, out of custom from long years of having lived with his decision; but at their utterance, Christie froze where she stood before the door, unable to enter, the sound of his voice pronouncing doom to her ears.

Barnaby cleared his throat. "You mean there's nothing more important to you than this—quest of yours?" he asked.

Garrett's voice was hard. "Nothing."

At the sound of the word, Christie felt hot tears rush up to sting her eyes as she brought her fist to her mouth, biting it hard to stifle the cry that threatened to come out. Pain, palpable and real, shot through her chest like a knife and she moved swiftly away from the door.

"God, I was afraid of it, and I was right!" she said to herself through the tears. "He can't love me—or any woman—with that awful hatred and revenge eating him up inside. Oh, I should never have hoped—"

With tears falling silently, she went to the dressing room to find one of the trunks Lula had purchased.

In the sitting room, Barnaby was regarding Garrett closely in the silence that passed between them since Garrett's brief reply. Finally he spoke. "Mr. Randall," he said, letting the words fall slowly, "what about Christie?"

Garrett looked at him for a long time before speaking, considering his question.

"My wife," he said after the silence had grown even greater, "means a great deal to me, Mr. Rutledge. I've only begun to appreciate how much. But this— quest, as you put it, is something that began a long time ago and has its roots so deeply imbedded in my soul, I cannot regard its pursuit as anything but imperative. I never thought to marry. My life, until now, had no room for a woman in it. But Christie and I—we . . . happened. And as it is, I can only tell you that these two aspects of my life are something I shall endeavor to keep separate and apart from each other. My life with Christie is to have nothing to do with my promised duty to my dead parents. If
fortune smiles on me, I will find my quarry before too long and then be free to give Christie all she needs—and deserves. Until then, I hope she can be content with what I am able to give."

Barnaby nodded solemnly. He could well comprehend this kind of single-mindedness to a chosen purpose, for it had been, though on a different course, a similar bent of mind which had consumed the total energies and interests of himself and Charles Trevellyan many years before when they had worked to build the financial empire they now controlled.

"I think I understand you, Mr. Randall. I only hope Christie can do as much. I'm very fond of the child. Her father and I have been friends as well as business associates since before he settled in America. It would pain me greatly to see her hurt. But I think she has found in you one of the few men who might make her happy—perhaps the only one. Your wife is made of rare stuff, Mr. Randall, and if you ever gain the peace to really appreciate what I mean by that, you will be a very lucky man, indeed! Now, shall we pursue the other matter?"

An hour later, Garrett sat silently in a chair after Rutledge's departure, pondering what he had learned.

According to Barnaby, during the period twenty years ago, relations between England and the colonies had become increasingly strained, and not the least among the factors contributing to the resentment among liberal factions here was the law England had proclaimed forbidding the export of American goods to any but the mother country. This

had had a depressing influence on prices for these goods through absence of wide competition, but in the year in question, a sudden demand for tobacco in England alone had driven up the price for that particular export, for she could use all we could send her. One huge import firm, in particular, had contracted with Trevellyan himself, through Rut-ledge, for an enormous shipment, hoping to drive up their profit even further by virtually monopolizing the market.

Rutledge had signed a contract on the basis of knowledge he had that, at the time, he thought assured him of its fulfillment; he had been fairly certain he and Trevellyan could supply all the necessary tobacco the English company demanded. Unfortunately, some of their regular suppliers were caught short because of a series of Indian raids which had resulted in their crops being burned, and to make up the difference, they had been forced to seek out new sources who acted as agents through middlemen.

In late 1770 they had located one such party in the Charleston area who had promised to deliver what tobacco they needed, but when the time came, it was found that the agent was unable to fulfill the bargain, threatening him with a considerable loss of face—not to mention future business—with them or any of their associates.

"It was relatively easy," Rutledge had explained, "for a factor in those days to lose all respect in the much smaller business community of those years by failing to meet a commitment. Fortunately for this man, we never actually learned his identity. He
worked through two smaller middlemen, you see, for some reason preferring to keep his name secret—not that this was highly unusual. Then, as now, men often have their reasons for remaining anonymous in such dealings. ... At any rate, we were lucky enough to locate another supplier at the eleventh hour. That was where I had occasion to meet your father, by the way. His name was given us as that of a planter who might sell to us directly; but when I met with him briefly in Charleston, he informed me his crop had already been sold. But it was he who directed me to the ultimate source we found, a neighbor of his, upriver, I believe. Thus we fulfilled our own commitment, and I never did hear from the anonymous man's agents again, although—"

"Can you give me the names of those two middlemen?" Garrett had interrupted.

"No, not at this moment, although, if you'll contact my office in Fredericksburg, our records can supply them, I think. But as I was about to say, I seem to recall someone mentioning one of them being the victim of a horrible murder shortly thereafter—had his throat slit while he slept, I believe. . . . Let's see . . . yes, I do recall the name had an ironic tie-in with the way he died—we all remarked on it at the time. ... Cutwell, that's it! Cutwell—Thomas Cut-well. Ghastly!" he said, shaking his head.

"And the other's name, you cannot offhand recall?"

"My dear Mr. Randall. I am no longer a young man, but I do pride myself on a good memory. Still, on events happening over twenty years ago . . . No, my impatient friend, I'm afraid you'll have to wait