Passion's Joy (15 page)

She awoke to his kiss. Yet, still dazed with sleep, she remained unaware of landing on this very real shore of her dreams. His lips first teased, barely touching. She gasped slightly, and her lips parted with an innocent invitation. One not neglected. He lay on his side, leaning over, partially resting his weight over her. The feel of her soft curves was madness itself. He wanted more and brought the small of her back against him just as his tongue swept into her mouth to drink deeper.

Warm languid heat lifted through her, sending her into a soft swoon, melting and helpless. As though reaching for a lifeline, her arms curved around his neck, and her fingers ran through the thick, dark curls of his hair. Oddly, it was the band of his patch that jolted her with sudden alarm.

She pulled away. "Ram!"

He chuckled at her surprise. "Were you imagining another?'

A hand went to her flushed cheek, and she drew a shaky uneven breath as her eyes traveled over the surroundings and she remembered her circumstances. "You watched me as I slept!"

Leaning back, he returned the straw to his mouth and nodded with amusement. "How long have you been here?"

"I have no watch to mark the time."

Indeed, no watch and precious little else. He was exactly as she had first seen him: half naked and like a savage, that muscled bronze frame clad in sun-washed white breeches, a belt with a jeweled dagger hanging from its side. He looked the very pirate of her imagination. There was also something alarming behind the menacing amusement in his gaze as he stared at her, something that made her eyes abruptly rivet to her diary.

"My diary!"

"That's what that is?" he asked evenly, his gaze dropping briefly to the book too.

The statement itself brought relief, though she still reached to take the book safely in her hands. She would die, that was all, she'd simply load her pistol and shoot herself if he had read it. "You didn't—" she couldn't even say it.

"Read it?" he asked with an inquiring lift of brow. "Joy," he scolded, "what nature of character do you assign to me?"

With her relief came the awareness of where his gaze rested—the cause of his amusement— and she crossed her arms over herself as heat rose in her face. "I'm hardly dressed—"

"So I've noticed."

She didn't know how to explain what happened next. He purposely put a silence between them, one broken only by the babbling stream, the distant cry of birds and dragonflies dancing in the still morning air. Yes, he was threatening her. Without a word of warning, she was afraid to get up, afraid of the loneliness of their surroundings and the look in his gaze.

Afraid, without reason of the black patch.

She felt her heart and pulse take flight as her nerves stretched taut like tuned strings of a musical instrument. She knew instinctively that he not only understood the emotion in her eyes, but he had put it there with intent.

Quite suddenly her thoughts changed as she met the source of her fear: the ominous black patch, the signature to his devastating handsomeness. Owing to her nature, concern overcame her fear. She leaned forward on hands and knees in a pose so unknowingly seductive it jolted him with quick, hard and hot desire. A timid hand trembled ever so slightly as she reached to his face, a finger gently ran over the patch and scar. "How did this happen?"

The softly whispered question, the concern sparkling with fear in her eyes drew some emotion from him that he absolutely refused to consider. He caught her hand, brought her backside to the blanket and came partially over her, pinning her small hands to the earth and said what she simply could not believe: "You draw too close, girl; you play with fire."

She touched the strange and awful thing that was the mystery of him, and more than a virgin's fear, the shocking heat of his hard muscled body straining against hers brought a rush of panic. "Then, let me go."

Time stretched endlessly, transforming into a kaleidoscope of moments. He saw many things in a crystal clear form. She became the first and only battle against the dark streak that fate wove into his life, a battle he had already lost to the force of desire coursing through him.

Hauntingly primitive, his desire transcending the lure of her physical beauty and the tease of her sensual innocence. It was a desire woven by fate, and though the consequences were conceivably grave—

"It's too late," he whispered as his lips brushed over her face. "It's far too late." "No." She shook her head. "Please—"

"Don't fight me. Not now." His lips hovered closely over her mouth. "I think I've fought enough for both of us."

He stopped her protest by possessing her mouth, a kiss given with force yet marked with a strange tenderness. He tasted of warmth and sunshine, a promise called to the very center of her being. She felt herself succumb to the sensual press of his mouth, and she stopped writhing, which only served to make her aware of the hard muscled maleness of him. His desire radiated a warm energy into her, and she went pliant beneath him again, her body answering his call.

Then he broke the kiss with a soft victorious chuckle. "Ah, I was enjoying your struggle the brief time it lasted. But you, Joy Claret"—his lips trailed slowly down her neck, pleasing him with the shivers this caused—"have not the armor with which to fight a man."

A hot slap of shame competed briefly with desire, and on cue, her struggle renewed but briefly again, for the shame washed over her in a heated rush so closely connected with desire it stopped her instantly. His next warm chuckle told her he was well aware of it. "Shall I show you more, Joy Claret?”

"No," she said weakly.

"Yes." He laughed and she saw he was teasing her, unbelievably and mercilessly he teased her. He was teasing; she was dying. He was a playful lover, though the next kiss was anything but amusing. He forced her lips apart for a deeper invasion, one slow, hot and tantalizing. She could not fight her desire to surrender, did not want to fight it, as her lips welcomed his, seeking in turn.

His hands came over her form, and his touch felt like fire. She was alive only where his hands caressed her, and all of it was somehow connected to a tightening knot deep inside her. With wild alarm, she realized the tingling she felt rose from her breasts, which were pressing against his chest. Her whole body strained to meet his.

Ram's lips finally left hers, and Joy opened her eyes to see clouded desire mixed with tender amusement still in his gaze. "Aye, I tease you, my love…" His lips brushed her face and ear; wild shivers raced from the spot—"but know why torment is returned tenfold with a desire as new to me as it is to you."

He lifted partially from her, only one hand holding both of hers as his free hand pressed the thin material of her blouse against the maddening tease of her breast, then stopped to draw the shirt up to finally unveil the beauty tormenting him. He pulled the blouse over her head but kept it entwined around her arms. She forgot to breathe. The heat of his gaze was no less than that of his body, and she twisted, not understanding the small warm rushes between her thighs, pulsating now...

"My god, you are beautiful," he whispered as his hand drew circles over the taut peaks. She bit her lip with a muted cry and closed her eyes tight. "Please—"

He encountered her bewildered torment with another chuckle. "Please what, I wonder? A cry for mercy?" he asked, as his lips and tongue teased the rosy tips to shameless desire. Never had she imagined anything like this! She flushed with tumultuous sensations rippling through her.

"Mercy you shall get," he said softly as he gently massaged the swollen peaks. "A slow, sweet and blessed mercy indeed, yet not with impunity."

The rich timbre of his voice brought her eyes open only to close as his lips took hers again and her bare flesh was brought against his. Just as desire might have at last overridden her innocence, his hand lifted her skirt over her hips. The sensation of his hands caressing her hips, the naked skin of her abdomen, put her on the edge of sudden fear, a fear mixed with heated anticipation, another gush of warmth and then—

Rake barked, and instantly Ram stopped, his muscles rigid with anticipatory mobilization just moments before Seanessy's voice, raised with an old Irish song, sounded in the distance. Ram collapsed all at once, and through her thick daze, the first thing Joy was aware of was his laughter, laughter filled with relief and regret both.

"Seanessy, Seanessy," he laughed. "I bless and curse you in turns. Ah my love," he said to her, quickly bringing the blouse back over her head, "it seems you've been granted impunity after all."

As he lifted her to her feet, she felt a disappointment that might have been pain and heard herself ask stupidly, "I'm safer?”

He finished tucking in her shirt before taking her chin to lift her face. "Joy Claret," he chuckled warmly, "you would not be safe in a convent with a habit over your head." He kissed her lips lightly. "Certainly you are not safe from me. I think we would do well to remember it."

The great white stallion emerged in the glen, and Seanessy's song ended. Cory, seated behind him and, unlike Sean, oblivious to the scene they interrupted, clapped with merry applause for his song.

"I am sorry, my lord!"

"Not, I can assure you, half as sorry as I."

"Quite the contrary, it is my loss after all. I lay the blame at Cory's feet though. Of course, when you did not return, I, imagining assassins lurking the woods, set off in pursuit, but nothing—" he laughed—"nothing could have made me interrupt. Cory had not my same inducement. When I found her along the way, very determined to find her mistress with news she swears is of immediate import, I, alas, had no choice."

"I figured as much."

Joy hardly heard the banter between them. She was still lost in a flushed haze of this first taste of his love. Her whole body, indeed her entire being, seemed ready, flushed and feverish, waiting for something that wasn't going to happen, a promise unfulfilled. It confused her, bringing an enormity of emotions, all of which were velvet mixed with stark naked disappointment. Then, too, how could she possibly make sense of the apparent capaciousness of his emotions: the streak of cruelty, his baiting and teasing, all of which were mixed with tenderness. Now, one might never know there was something between them!

"Joy." He turned back to her, purposely standing in front of her as he stared down at the bewilderment of her face. "The pleasure has been mine, but it is not one I would share. Go and find the rest of your clothes, love."

The words brought back the awareness of the indecency of her dress, and she hurried away, needing no more warning. Sean lowered Cory to the ground as he commented on how inviting the cool depths of the pond must look to those wallowing away their time beneath the heat of a Louisiana sun. The comment was greeted with laughter as Ram indeed dove in. Cory, however, swiftly found Joy behind the bushes putting her clothes back on. The fear and excitement on Cory's face had nothing to do with Joy having been in an apparent state of undress at the lake with Ram.

"You ain't gonna believe—"

Joy's attention abruptly snapped back to earth. "What's wrong? Joshua?"

"No, no, he's doin' fine, jest fine. I left him asleep to meet you for fishing." She rushed on, "I was stashin’ our poles in our hidin' place, and I came out of the woods to see the Baxter carriage comin' up the road. Miss Katie's father was with them. The carriage stops when they see me, and Madame Beauchamp pass greetings, inquirin' after Joshua and you and all. Well, you know how she can talk! She kept me standin’ there for quite a spell, goin' on 'bout this and that, and all the while, I'm listen to the Massas and the boys talking 'bout this meetin' tonight."

"A meeting? So?"

"Seems they is all bandin' together to work on somethin' to do 'bout these niggerites hidin' in these parts, stealin' darkies from under their noses."

"Oh my word!... Where Cory? Did you hear where?"

She nodded as she spoke, "At Rowe's Palace, tonight. That place men's always talkin’ up." "Oh my goodness—"

"It ain't all," Cory whispered lower, drawing Joy closer with a dark skinny hand on her arm. "This meetin'—" she glanced behind her through the bushes, where a certain someone swam in their lake—"got somethin' to do with him, Massa high and mighty himself."

The air filled with the heady perfume of over six hundred hot perspiring bodies jammed into the wide space of the tree-lined meadow. The Reverend's voice thundered from the pulpit. Babies wailed, jiggled in their mother's arms. Coughs erupted and rippled through the crowd as though by some prearranged consensus. A dog fight broke out on the side, and the five armed overseers nearby quickly placed bets on the outcome.

Standing on a bench to see over the heads, Sammy watched from the back. Some of the people sat, others stood but all listened with rapt attention to the Reverend's crock of bull. He could smell the collective fear brought about by the hellish pontifications, and he wondered again what if? What if someone stood up and shouted, "This is bull! I say bull! Ain't no snow-white lord sittin' in heaven sayin' to all the colored folks: “You there, boy—need some spick and span round the throne room! Hop to with the mop, boy!'"

Or what if someone rose and said: "Lookit here! There's only five men with guns! They can stop one but they can't stop all the people! We can take 'em and run! Run for freedom!”

What if all the people got up and ran?

Anger filled his chest and he looked away, disgusted. It would never happen. Not as long as fear and submission and ignorance were beaten into the people at their first breath. No sir!

Where the hell was Delilah?

He searched the crowd of women bustling frantically to and fro around the four long tables off to the side in an effort to prepare the Sunday meal for six hundred people. He spotted her immediately, shouting orders to two other women. No one could miss Delilah—not with her great bulk, and the wide straw hat that never left her head.

Delilah was the black mammy of white folks' imagination: dark as night, a big woman to start and round as a barrel, twice as wide with a hundred or so extra pounds. Delilah held the unenviable position of head slave cook for the Simone plantation, but she had once, a long time ago, been mammy for a well-known Virginia family. The family sold her downstream when the barest whisper of suspicion said it was Delilah, the family's mammy of nearly two generations, who had been putting arsenic in the youngest master's food, killing him slowly each day.