For Her Love (13 page)

Giles laughed. “Not on a ship, you wouldn’t. But mayhap we could spend a little time there in winter. I’ve friends around Boston.” He reached across the table and took her hand in his, a natural gesture for a man courting a woman.

Grace felt her carefree elation slip away. His touch was warm and gentle, but the time would come when that grasp would become rough, when he would pin her hands at her sides and press her into a mattress with all of his weight. Her mouth went dry as cotton, and it took tremendous willpower not to pull her hand away from him. Stop being such an infant, she scolded herself. Everything has a price. Everything. She did her best to smile at him and to keep her hand relaxed in his.

He smiled back, lifted that hand to his lips, and kissed her fingertips so softly and gently that she felt the butterfly touch of his breath more than the kiss itself. Hope seemed to spread from that one touch through her whole body. Her own lips tingled at thought of his mouth doing there what it had done to her fingers. He was so different, she thought, so utterly different from Jacques. It would be all right. It had to be. It had to be, because she was about to steer her ship into the open sea and give this man something that she had only ever given to Matu—her trust.

“I have never been on an adventure before, Giles, but I think that it is high time, and I think that there should be no greater adventure than marrying you.”

Giles missed his next breath. A strange feeling, some exhilarating combination of elation and panic gripped him. When he had taken her hand, he had been somehow certain that he had offended her, but then she had smiled at him. And then, in an instant, he had become engaged. He looked at her and saw what he had longed to see. Her gaze was open; there was no suspicion, no cynical reserve. This beautiful, amazing creature was going to be his wife.

Oh God, his
wife
. What if she got seasick? What if she hated sailing and had to stay in Jamaica? What if she never came to love him, and she met some merchant while he was away? What if he never came to love her, and then he met some woman who was better suited to him?

What if he didn’t marry her, and she married a planter instead? What if she lived the rest of her life surrounded by a misery she couldn’t ignore and that chipped away at her incredibly resilient spirit?

What if waking to her every morning was going to become the most important thing in his life?

“Giles?” she asked. “Are you all right? You still want to marry me, do you not?”

He felt a little hitch in his chest at the look of doubt and uncertainty that had clouded her face. He hadn’t meant to do that, make her doubt him. “Aye, Grace, aye, I do.”

He stood, pulling her up from her seat at the table and drawing her close. Grace felt a little like she did when she stood at the edge of one of the limestone cliffs that skirted the sea in places along the shore. The water below was clear and beautiful, but that eased not the fear of the height. Awaiting the touch of Giles’s lips to hers was very much the same.

But it never came. The front door swung back on its hinges, accompanied by the sound of Edmund’s voice cursing a broken gear in the sugar mill. He stopped in the doorway, his clothes and hair dripping rainwater onto the wooden floor, his eyes devouring the sight of his daughter in Giles’s arms. “Damn me!” he cried, his mouth splitting into a broad grin. “Three weeks from Sunday, is it?”

Giles looked down at Grace, and before she could give herself a chance to rethink it, she nodded and said, “Three weeks from Sunday.”

*

By the end of that three weeks, Grace was nearly convinced that she had dreamed it all. Giles had stayed that night, but he left the next morning, and now it was Saturday, the day before her wedding, and he had yet to return. She had received a brief note that he was delayed by business, but he promised to have it all cleared up in time.

Meanwhile, she and Matu had been packing her things and sharing their excitement about all the adventures that awaited them. Grace glanced guiltily at a trunk that Matu had neatly packed an hour before. Now, it had been thoroughly rummaged through in pursuit of the pair of stockings that matched her gown and had been mistakenly tucked into the trunk. Really, she could have worn the white ones she found almost immediately. White went with everything, didn’t it? But she was sure that he would be arriving today. He and his friends couldn’t arrive tomorrow, could they? Not the day
of
the wedding. Nay, surely not. Where were her shoes? She started to walk over to the second trunk to dig for them there, but tripped on the way, nearly landing on her knees.

She started to mutter a word that would have sent Matu into a flurry of admonishing gestures had she been there, but when Grace looked down and found her errant shoes, she had to laugh at herself. Good heavens, if she was such a bundle of nerves today, in what state would the morrow find her?

While they had packed, Matu had been very clear in communicating that the one long sea voyage she had taken in her life, the one that had delivered her into slavery, was the only one she intended to take. When Grace and Giles journeyed afar, she would stay behind and keep their home in order. It was a given that she would not be Grace and Giles’s slave, but she wanted to stay with them, and Grace wanted desperately to have Matu with her. From this point on, Matu would be the only one in her life who knew the awful truth, and it wasn’t a burden Grace wanted to bear alone. It gnawed at her insides. Giles was marrying her for her honesty, and there would be so many lies of omission between them.

She managed to spill a half a bottle of perfume down her bodice just as her father called up the stairs to tell her that
Reliance
had returned. This time the forbidden word did slip through her lips. There was no time to change. With no remorse for the disarray, she delved into the second trunk to find a lace-edged handkerchief and wipe as much of the oil away as she could. Then she leaned out her window into the rear courtyard, waving her hand in front of her breast. Matu and Keyah were standing in the kitchen doorway, and they both looked up at her with puzzled frowns.

“You a-go faint, Missy?” Keyah called up.

Matu snorted and shook her head. Grace had never been one to swoon.

“Nay, nay,” Grace proclaimed. “Just a little mishap with some perfume.”

Matu started toward the house, but Grace waved her back. “I must greet Giles and his friends. There’s nothing for this now. I think I cleaned up most of it.” She took a deep breath and nearly gagged on the overwhelming scent of jasmine, but smiled in spite of it. “Aye, ‘tis fine,” she reassured her maid.

Still fanning her breast, Grace walked into the hallway and headed toward the stairs, almost glad for the minor catastrophe that had taken her mind off of her doubts. She would be a good wife. She would be cheerful and a helpmate, everything that Iolanthe was not.

Iolanthe. Grace paused, straightening her back and squaring her shoulders at the thought of her stepmother. The woman had been so incensed at the news of Grace’s impending marriage that she had refused to leave her room or speak to anyone but the poor slave who was assigned to be her maid. The unfortunate girl had been slapped and had her ears boxed repeatedly as Iolanthe had given vent to her impotent rage. It really was a mystery to Grace. Of course, she knew that Iolanthe felt that it was wrong to deceive Giles, but ‘twas hard to believe that she was so angry on behalf of a near stranger. One would have thought that Iolanthe would be glad to be rid of Grace.

Those thoughts, too, were banished. She had enough to deal with today. Not only was it the eve of her wedding, but she was to meet Giles’s friends. One of the reasons he had been delayed was he and his partner had been juggling their shipments so Geoff and Faith could attend the wedding. She knew not exactly why, but she was nearly as anxious about meeting them as she was about getting married.

She had envisioned going to meet them at the dock, but seized by an uncharacteristic bout of cowardice, she had waited in her room, making a shambles of things and peering apprehensively into her mirror. Belatedly she thought mayhap she should have had Matu use her special hairdressing on her hair. For Giles, she had left it loosely pinned into a cascade of curls, but mayhap this Faith woman would think her an unstylish bumpkin.

Even from the top of the stairs, Grace heard Giles’s voice drift through the open windows at the front. He laughed, and his voice was joined by her father’s and another man’s. Tinkling like a merry undercurrent, a woman laughed with them.

It would be inexcusably rude not to greet them. With a deep, jasmine-suffused breath, she descended the stairs, swept through the keeping room, and opened the front door to meet her fiancé and his entourage. There were but the four of them, and of course she knew Giles and her father, so she needed no introductions to know who was whom. Geoffrey Hampton was a good-looking man, tall and broad, but he lacked Giles’s crisp, polished appeal. His hair hung loose about a face that was hard and vaguely intimidating.

She didn’t even realize how tense she had been until her eyes met Giles’s and her body slowly relaxed. Giles looked far more like a ship’s captain. His grooming was, as always, impeccable, his face soft and smiling. He was the kind of man who inspired love and loyalty, not fear. She smiled back at him and told herself for the hundredth time that everything was going to be fine.

Then she set eyes on Faith, and her trepidation returned full force. She had never seen a woman so white in all her life. White. Everything about her was white. Her hair was silvery blonde, her skin alabaster. She very nearly made Iolanthe look African. On one hip, she balanced a baby as pale as she. How could Giles see Grace and her side by side and not suddenly realize that Grace was so very dark? How could he look at Faith’s slim, perfect nose and not see that hers was too broad? How could she ever be friends with a woman like this?

And then Faith smiled, and the smile lit her blue-green eyes. “Grace,” she said. “I know you must be. I’d know you among a crowd in Port Royal, Giles has painted you so clearly in our minds.” She stepped forward as if to embrace Grace, but the little boy got in the way. He threw his arms around his mother’s neck and then plugged his nose, gazing distastefully at Grace.

The perfume, drat it all!
Grace swallowed hard and smiled back, though she knew hers was not so open a greeting. “He’s told me much about you, as well. How nice to finally meet you.”

Geoff strode forward and swept her hand up in his, gallantly bending over it with a bow. To his credit, he did a fair job of masking his reaction to the smell, merely blinking a few times and softly clearing his throat. “Giles told me he’d found him a wench as fair as my Faith, but I’d not believed it ‘til now.”

Grace furrowed her brow in confusion. Fair? Oh, pretty. Then she frowned. A wench was an African woman.

Giles gave Geoff a stern look, but the twinkle in his eyes belied the scowl. “You’ll keep a civil tongue in your head when you speak of my wife.”

Faith shook her head. “Forgive him. For what ‘tis worth, he calls me a wench, too.”

Grace looked at her father, her eyes wide with confusion, and Edmund explained, “We’ve naught but ladies and Africans here. I don’t think that Grace has ever heard the term wench but that it meant a slave girl.” He gave Grace a sharp look. “Heavens girl, have you been rolling in the gardens?

Grace flushed with embarrassment. “A small dispute with a bottle of perfume.”

Faith shook her head sympathetically. “I know just what you mean. The stopper gets stuck, and when it finally comes lose, you’ve half the bottle on you.”

“I’d not meant to insult you earlier,” Geoff interrupted. “Faith puts up with too much from me.”

Faith laughed and wrapped her free arm around her husband’s waist and squeezed. It was a natural, easy gesture, and Grace continued to stare, her eyes like saucers. She had never seen Iolanthe touch her father in any way. She had never seen other planters’ wives or even slave women touch men in such a manner. Geoff was huge, nearly a foot taller than Faith and surely a hundred pounds heavier, and yet she embraced him as though it were her right. As though
he
belonged to
her
, and not the other way ‘round.

Giles moved into the cloud of Grace’s perfume to take both of her hands in his. They were cold, and he had the feeling she had been nervous about his return. Now, she looked at him with green eyes filled with awe and wonder, and it hit him yet again how little he knew her. Whatever was going through her mind just now? Had she been worried that he had changed his mind? Had she been on the verge of changing hers?

“Forgive me for not making it back sooner,” he said. “Geoff has to go to Tortuga soon after the wedding, so we had a number of matters to settle first.”

Grace turned to Faith. “Will you and your son go with him? Giles told me the two of you travel together, but do you not worry about a child so young on a ship?”

“Actually,” Faith answered, “I’ll be staying at home this time.”

Giles gave Geoff a puzzled look. “You never mentioned that.” Turning to Faith he added, “Will you be all right alone? Grace and I could stay with you.”

She grinned slightly. “That won’t be necessary. Besides, I’ve been a newlywed. You two shall need time alone.”

“I’ll leave one of my men behind with her. I won’t be more than a week,” Geoff explained.

Giles still didn’t look satisfied. “If you’re sure.” To Faith, he said, “I’m surprised you’re staying behind, though.”

“A few hours’ journey up the coast, above deck, wasn’t so bad, but I don’t think I’m up to the usual first few days of seasickness just now.”

Comprehension dawned on Giles’s face, and he laughed out loud. “Never say it! A bit queasier than usual are you, Faith? Geoff, why didn’t you tell me before?”

Geoff laughed, too. “I’d not wanted to overshadow your big day. Still, now the cat’s out of the bag, we’ve more than enough to celebrate.”

Edmund beamed and shook Geoff’s hand vigorously. “Congratulations! And you’ve this fine son, too. See what you have to look forward to, my dear?” He addressed this last to Grace.