For Her Love (16 page)

Grace nodded at him, but he could see in her eyes that she didn’t believe him.

“I can give you pleasure, Grace, but you must trust me.”

“You’ve done this before,” she said. It was a statement, not a question.

He shrugged a little sheepishly. “The rules are somewhat different for men.” He expected her to protest the unfairness of it, but that didn’t seem to concern her.

Instead she asked, “And she liked it, the woman you did this with?”

“Ah—” he shifted uncomfortably on the bed. ‘The woman’—singular. If he did not correct the assumption, it was a mere white lie of omission. What was the harm? “Aye.”

She didn’t miss his discomfort. She, of all people, knew when someone was skirting the truth. “Who was she? And did she—did she come to you willingly?”

“Of course!” he exclaimed. What sort of a monster did she take him for? Then he remembered the little girl in the hut and the slave who was the child’s mother. He ran his hands over his face as he worked to master his expression. “I am not your father. I do not force women to do things they don’t want to do.”

“Women?” She rose from her seat on the bed. “More than one?”

He had swabbed himself right into a corner with that one. “A man has certain needs, Grace.”

“That he cannot control?”

“Well, of course he can. He just doesn’t always choose to.”

She regarded him through narrow eyes. “And women do not have these needs.”

“They do! Most do. But ‘tis different. They wait for the right man.”

“But men do not wait for the right woman.”

Had he told Geoff that he liked the fact that she challenged him? “Well…”

“And you were the right man for all of these women, but you are not right for any of them anymore?”

“You make it sound as though I left them in the lurch.”

“Did you not?”

“They were paid!” he snapped, bewilderment getting the better of him. “I was far from the only man in their lives. I don’t take innocent women and cast them aside, you know. Mayhap ‘tis not a sterling thing, buying an occasional night’s pleasure, but ‘tis no great crime! And ‘twill be different for me now. I’ll be a faithful husband to you, Grace. I vowed that today.”

But Grace heard none of his last objections. She took in nothing but the fact that he had gone to the places that Jacques had told her of. The ones he had wanted to sell her to. She envisioned frightened girls not yet at the cusp of womanhood, cowering beneath sheets that they held clutched to their flat chests in terror. In her mind’s eye, one man after another ripped the sheets aside and violated these girls, and among those men were Giles and Jacques.

Giles took in Grace’s pale face and wide, fixed eyes and felt a wash of alarm. “Grace?”

She snapped back from whatever dark void had swallowed her. “Do it!” she snarled. “Do it and be done with it. I cannot bear to think of it anymore!”

Giles felt his heart begin to pound and his palms sweat. He felt as he often had ere he and Geoff sailed into battle against a heavily armed Spanish vessel. While Geoff had smiled and laughed, Giles had tamped down the hidden fear that this would be it, the battle they finally lost.

“This isn’t normal, Grace. Some nerves, mayhap, but not this. Did something happen? You can tell me.”

But her eyes had gone back to being unfocused, stark with terror. “Nothing happened. Nothing happened. Please, just get it over with. You need not even be gentle. I no longer care if it hurts; I don’t care anymore. Just do it.” He put his hand on her shoulder, but she jerked sharply away. “Do not touch me like that. Do not try to make it better. I just want it to be over.”

“I’m not going to ravage you,” he protested. “You’re my wife. This should be special, more than a mere joining of bodies.”

“Was it not a mere joining of bodies with those others? The ones you did ravage? Were they black?”

For the first time during the course of the whole fiasco, Giles felt a surge of raw anger. “I do not rape slaves! I’d never rape any woman! I cannot believe that you could have spent any time at all in my presence and believe such a thing of me.” He rose and turned his back to her. “One thing is certain. We rushed headlong into this marriage knowing next to nothing of one another. This, at least, can wait.”

Unwilling to have his character assassinated further and impotently unable to quell her fear, Giles did the only other thing he could think of. He left her in his cabin and stormed up to the deck above.

The sun had set entirely, leaving the sky smeared by stars. Giles was grateful for the cool air that caressed his hot face when he climbed the ladder to the deck. He had been so angry, so frustrated, he doubted not that his face had been nearly purple. He avoided the gaze of the night watchman who glanced curiously in the Captain’s direction. Then a shadow detached itself from one of the masts and approached him.

“I thought you’d be below with your wife,” Giles said, immediately recognizing his friend’s silhouette.

“She’s asleep. And anyway, I thought the same of you,” Geoff returned. “Unless I miss my mark, you’ve not done your wedding night justice.”

Giles didn’t answer. He tilted his head back and looked up through the rigging, studying the lights that twinkled overhead.

“Bit skittish, is she?” Geoff prompted.

Skittish. Aye, and a hurricane tended to be a bit blustery, Port Royal a trifle boisterous.

“Was Faith?” Giles asked.

“Aye. Maidens worry some till passion gets the better of them.”

“Was she just nervous or truly frightened?”

“Frightened of burning in hell. All that talk of sin and retribution she’d been raised on.”

“But of the act?”

Geoff sighed. “She knew me better, Giles. We’d been sharing a room and a bunk, spending hours on end together. Mayhap your wench but needs a little more time.”

“She’s not just nervous, Geoff. She’s bloody terrified.”

With a shrug, Geoff said, “I cannot fathom it. You’re not a fearsome man except in battle.”

Giles crossed his arms and leaned against the mast. “I thought to be her knight in shining armor. I was going to slay the dragon and take her off to live happily ever after. Now, I wonder just how many dragons there are and whether I have what it takes to slay even one.”

“You know, Giles, in all the battles that you and I have fought together, I have never once been afraid.”

“Nay, you never have. You are the bold one, the one to sally forth and never err. For once in my life I have plunged into the fray without thought, and look what a mess I’ve made.”

“I was never afraid because I knew without a doubt that the finest man ever to sail these waters had my back. I erred. I erred many times, but you were ever there to set those mistakes to right. Mayhap there is a dragon or two that you cannot slay for your maiden. Mayhap she must face them down herself. But one thing is sure, she is well with you beside her. She only needs time to trust in that. For pity’s sake, Giles, look at how her own mother treats her. You cannot fault her for her caution. Stay there for her, my friend. Be steady for her, patient and reliable. Faith swears that God brought us together, for each of us was just what the other needed. Mayhap ‘tis so for you and Grace, as well.”

Giles couldn’t help but smile. “Faith needed an unrepentant rogue?”

“Aye,” Geoff said with a chuckle. “‘Twas exactly what she needed. And Grace needs you. She’ll see that soon.”

They spoke awhile longer ere Giles returned to his quarters. The talk and cool sea air left him feeling calmer, ready to face his wife again. Inside the cabin, Grace was still awake, sniffling and breathing in broken gasps as though she had only just stopped sobbing. He sat down next to her huddled form.

“There now, sweet, there’s no need for all this.”

Grace drew a ragged breath. “You will hate me. ‘Tis not too late. You can have this marriage annulled.”

He stretched out next to her, and she pulled away, but he wrapped his arm around her waist. “Stop. Don’t fight. I swear to you, Grace, I only want to hold you, no more.”

She’d had time to think while he was away. He wasn’t a brute. He could have ravaged her. She had given him leave to, but he hadn’t. And while he was gone, she had become acutely aware of how alone she was in this strange room on a strange vessel, its rocking completely foreign to her. “I’m so sorry, Giles,” she whispered.

“Shh. Nothing to be sorry for. Go to sleep, now. One should be well-rested ere one takes on Port Royal for the first time.”

“But Giles, I know not when…”

He tugged her to him, pressing himself to her like a spoon, but made no further move to caress or kiss her. “When the time is right.”

For the longest time she waited for his hands to wander, his lips to return to her neck. Instead, he but kept one arm loosely draped over her hip while the warmth from his body seeped through their clothes and into her cold flesh. The linens on the bed smelled of soap and the distinct, earthy scent of the man behind her, and she felt her body begin to relax. After awhile, she decided that he must have fallen asleep and tried to ease herself from under his arm.

“Too warm?” he murmured.

“I thought you were sleeping.”

“Nay. Just enjoying the feel of you, the smell. You smell of jasmine.” He chuckled softly, “Though not so much as you did yesterday.”

She laughed too. “‘Tis the same perfume. I hardly needed any more. You smell of spice and something rather musky.”

“The spice is soap from the orient. The other is probably just sweat.”

Whatever it was, it made her feel somehow safe and dreamy. “I’m glad you came back,” she whispered.

“And I.”

“I haven’t slept alone since I was ten. Matu slept with me.”

“Since you were ten?”

“I was afraid.”

“Of dragons?”

She stopped breathing for a second. “A monster.”

He softly nuzzled his face in her hair. “You need fear no monsters now. I have your back, Grace.”

He did. Somehow he had managed to wrap his big body all about her, but instead of feeling fearful, she felt sheltered. Oh, if only it would never go beyond this. If only she could spend the rest of his life lying beside him in his arms, and never underneath him.

*

They rose early, and Grace donned her yellow wedding gown for lack of anything else. Early though it was, when she went up on deck and looked back toward home, she saw that her two trunks awaited her at the dock, along with two muscular slaves to help load them onto the ship. She accompanied the rowboat when it was sent to get them, then went into the house one last time. She mounted the stairs to check her room, just in case she’d left something behind. Matu was sitting on Grace’s bed, her posture, her face, everything about her filled with hopeless despair. When Grace walked through the door, the maid looked up, her eyes anxiously scanning the younger woman, seeming to seek signs of harsh use.

“I’m fine,” Grace assured her, and Matu smiled. “He’s very kind and patient.”

Matu nodded.

“We will come back for you.”

The woman nodded again, but less confidently.

Grace cast her eyes about the chamber. It was as neat and tidy as Giles’s cabin, now that all her things had been packed away. It seemed like it belonged to someone else. “I guess we have everything.”

The maid spread her arms, encompassing the room, and shrugged. She guessed so, too.

“How touching.” Iolanthe’s voice, dripping with sarcasm, came from the hallway beyond.

Grace turned to look at her stepmother, who stood just outside the door. Iolanthe was smirking, having had her victory, but for the first time, it seemed, Grace could really see the bitter disappointment and desperate unhappiness in her eyes.

“Well,” Grace said, “you are rid of me at last.”

“Not for long,” Iolanthe returned. “He will find out.”

Grace only sighed. She and Iolanthe could never say a single word to each other without argument. Now could hardly be any different. She turned her back on the woman. “Will you walk to the dock with me, Matu?”

Matu shook her head, blinking suspiciously.

“You never cry,” Grace said.

Matu shrugged. They hugged one last time, so tightly neither could breathe, and kissed each other’s cheeks.

“I’ll be back,” Grace whispered fiercely in Matu’s ear.

Matu patted her arm, then used her thumbs to pull the corners of Grace’s mouth upward into a smile—the message “be happy.”

The smile lingered on Grace’s face. “I will. Try not to be too sad until I come for you.”

They heard Iolanthe laugh outside the chamber door, but neither deigned to look in her direction. Grace’s throat constricted painfully. “How can I do this, Matu? How can I just leave you here?”

Matu made the boat gesture. She pointed to herself and then to the ground with both hands. “I’ll wait here.”

They hugged again, each reluctant to let go, then Matu pulled away and gave Grace a little shove toward the door. She gestured for the girl to “shoo” and turned away to wipe an imaginary streak from the dressing table with her skirt, averting her face.

“I love you, Matu.”

Matu nodded and gestured to her heart and then to Grace, but she still didn’t look at her.

Blinking back hot tears, Grace swept into the hall, relieved to see that Iolanthe had gone elsewhere, then down the steps and out the front door. As she walked toward the dock, she wiped the moisture from her eyes and forced herself to focus upon the broad, confident form of her husband, who was overseeing the loading of her things into the rowboat.

Edmund had been missing from the house, but he had somehow managed to make his way to the dock by the time she returned. He was effusive in his well wishing, but sharper than usual with the slaves, barking at them for being too slow, too careless, too anything he could think of. He pulled Grace to the side, away from Giles and the men.

“Are you all right?” he asked fretfully.

“I’m fine.”

“Truly? Last night went well for you?”

She blushed. This was not something that she and her father ever discussed. “He is everything I could have hoped for.”