Passion's Joy (17 page)

She could not live without it.

"What are they saying now?" Ram asked, casually watching from the side.

Joy Claret first thought the familiar voice came from inside; she pressed her ear to the window even harder. It took several seconds for the alarm to register, turning her to the culprit.

She gasped with a start, and her foot slipped on its precarious balance; but Ram, having known this would happen and always willing to rescue this damsel forever in distress, caught her fall. Strong hands circled her waist as he gently lowered her to the ground.

Ram wondered if she had ever looked more beautiful. The ridiculous costume aside, it was the blinding fury in her eyes that caused his breath to catch, a tension seizing the whole of his body, one jolted from him with her soft spoken but fierce command: "Don't touch me!"

The pain marring her lovely face only told him how far the untried attraction had traveled: too far, much too far. His hands left her reluctantly. She backed away, her eyes blazing with an intensity of emotion that pierced his very soul. "Joy," he said slowly as a warning, "appearances are deceptive."

A light bitter laugh followed her gasp. "How true! And you are obviously well versed in the art of it. I just can't believe it... any of it!" Tears were quickly forming as trembling hands came to her cheeks. "You're not like the others; I can't even pity you. I hate you ... I hate you! And I'm going to stop you! I don't know how but I swear, I'm going to stop you—" She turned and ran from the spot.

Ram made no move to stop her. No doubt enlightenment would dawn by morning light, if not sooner, even if she didn't speak with Joshua, who of course knew the whole plan. These things he dismissed. What he had more trouble dismissing was her passion and his desire to own it.

* * * * *

Ram had designed the captain's quarters on the Ram's Head himself, solely for comfort on voyages marked only by the tedium of the rise and fall of waves. Few people could enter the magnificent room without a gasp or drop of mouth. Practicality and function marked the spacious room, yet excellent and expensive taste colored any and all impressions. Ram's desk, the. large dining table and chairs that often sat twelve for dinner, a huge over-stuffed bookcase and the bed's headboard were all made of the finest dark rosewood. A dark maroon and rich blue tapestry rug—a

fine piece of art work in itself—threw lush color into the room. Dark maroon, velvet curtains hung on either side of the bed, which Sean often commented was an indecent size for a ship. Ancient maps adorned the walls. An eight foot whittling of rosewood, carved by seven carefully selected wood sculptors, rose prominently in the far corner.

After a long run and swim, Ram stood at the gold-framed shaving mirror telling Sean and Derrick of the night's meeting and how the bastards had taken his bait. Bart entered and set the coffee tray on the long, hand-carved rosewood table. Bart's gaze immediately found Rake, who sat on his haunches, devouring a huge femur bone on the floor he had just seen polished. Ram, he knew, cared far more about animals than he did about floors, but after seeing dog and bone out, Bart was still going to complain when he realized the topic of the talk and knew better than to interrupt. After a splash of cologne on his face, Ram sat at the end of the table to enjoy his morning coffee, while updating Sean and Derrick on the plan's progress.

After tethering Libertine to a nearby tree, Joy Claret hesitated as she stared at the proud oceangoing ship before her. She felt quite the fool. Joshua and the Reverend explained of course. Everyone was entitled to mistakes though, weren't they? If the truth were known, she felt far worse about having left before overhearing what those men were going to do about the niggerites stealing their darkies—the second topic on the agenda—than she did about not trusting Ram enough to know he, despite his ruthlessness and dangerous strength, was by far and away incapable of the nefarious evil she had imagined.

She had one purpose and one purpose only in seeking Ram out. Joshua said Ram would not be persuaded to keep Mr. Beauchamp out of his plot, but still she felt she must try. Joshua had understood this and granted permission for this trip. After all, Katie and her mother were friends and had shown Joshua and herself nothing but kindness and charity ever since the day long ago when Joshua had saved Madame Beauchamp from a breach birth. Even if Mr. Beauchamp deserved ruin, Katie and her mother did not. Then, too, it was not that Mr. Beauchamp was really a bad man, just morally ignorant. This was the case she would put before Ram.

She tried for a brief moment to compose herself, but it was of no use. Her composure and Ram Barrington's proximity were like night and day; one chased the other away. She felt the meter of her heart and pulse fluttering more frantically with each bold step up the plank, and her blush,

she knew, was not from the interested stares of his men or the humor of their masculine comments as they all but stopped their work.

A man knocked and opened the door, but before he could announce the arrival of the timid though nonetheless insistent young lady, let alone tell of her beauty that had interrupted the work of his men—bets were already being placed on how long her stay would be—the young lady herself came through the door.

Upon seeing him, Joy stopped instantly. Never had he looked so handsome! He seemed to dominate the room with his long legs resting on the table as he leaned back in the chair, returning her stare. He wore black boots and clean white breeches, no shirt but an open white vest over the smooth bronze skin of the wide expanse of his chest. "Oh Ram, I'm sorry... I had thought you were alone—"

"Ram's misfortune, no doubt," Seanessy said, proceeding to exchange greetings with her, but those blue eyes abruptly swept over the room in unabashed interest in the magnificence of the arresting space. Due to the angle of the door, she thankfully missed the bed off to the side. While Seanessy bantered good-naturedly about her beguiling spy trick of the previous night, Ram still had not said a word, for his only thought was his desire must cloud his judgment. She could not be that lovely.

She wore the same Spanish peasant skirt of bright crimson, green and gold that outlined the slender curves of her hips, while the plain white blouse, gathered at the sleeves, was covered by a light cotton shawl. Like a peasant girl, too, her long dark hair was braided, the ropes of hair falling beneath a matching crimson scarf to drop past her small waist.

Recovering sufficiently from the blatant masculine personification of him in his quarters, she stumbled through an explanation. "l’am sorry to interrupt, truly. I'll come back later," she whispered, turning to leave, but even before he could stop her, she swung around. "Oh Ram! I must speak to you about it—"

"No doubt," he interrupted, "you've come to apologize."

"Well no," she said softly, and gathering courage from Sean's smile somehow, she added more boldly, "Why should I? You were horrible to let me believe it."

"I don't recall you giving me a chance to explain." "And I don't recall you asking for one."

"Joy Claret,"—a smile lifted to his gaze—"It's very difficult to beg favors from a young lady dressed ridiculously as a boy in a dark alley, who is going on about how much she hates you."

"Oh, but I did hate you!" she said and told him about her night spent plotting his murder, how she was stopped only by the moral consequences of it, this related with several examples from the Shakespearean tragedies. Just as her dramatic speech won her the prize of four men's amusement, a sound came from the immense bed that she had yet to notice.

Joy's eyes widened enormously.

A lady slept in his bed! The woman's face was turned toward them, and she was so beautiful and naked—naked!—beneath the sheets, naked in front of men and so unconcerned that she managed to sleep. Asleep in his bed—

She turned back to Ram, who watched her with that infuriating and ever present amusement.

“Your impetuousness has not gone unnoticed," Ram said easily enough. "I can only guess that the next time you burst into what is essentially a man's bed chambers, unannounced and uninvited, you might be better prepared for what to expect."

Propriety, any semblance of it, demanded her immediate withdrawal, but this was not on her mind. What was came in a shocked whisper. "But... but you were kissing me just—"

The unfinished accusation solicited a quick round of sudden laughter, and Sean almost lost the sip of coffee in his mouth. "Ram! How could you betray our lady like that? Kissing her and bedding another—with but one day's passing! Why, it's too horrible to contemplate. I suggest we refrain from doing so at once."

She wished the floor would open and swallow her up, so great was her embarrassment.

When no such merciful thing happened, she knew to heed the dictates of propriety, and she turned and ran out of the door.

Ram made no move to stop her, but he turned to Derrick. "Derrick, see which way she rides.

If it's south, then get some men out to follow her. I may not be the one to ruin that innocence, but I'll be damned if someone else will either. And Bart, let's get some breakfast in here. At least I'll get one appetite satisfied.''

The two men left, still chuckling as Sean turned to Ram. "I posted a letter to our servants on our last ship bound home, mentioning to make space in my study for your Rembrandt.'' He grinned,

ignoring Ram's sigh, chuckle, the shake of his head. He picked an apple from the fruit bowl. "A bite my lord? The taste is sweet indeed."

Ram laughed heartily and tossed another apple in the air, catching it in his mouth with a healthy bite. "Sweet indeed," he laughed.

Joy battled furiously with herself not to cry. This was not worth crying over! Yet the humiliation of the scene she just quit threatened to overwhelm her. This was mounted on top of the crushing discovery that she was not special to him. His attentions had made her feel special, their auspicious first meeting, his connection with Joshua to say nothing of how they shared the same utilitarian principles, the intimacies in the library; all these things had been deceptive. His kiss, the awakening to his touch had been deceptive! That lady casually sleeping in his bed brought home the fact that he considered intimacies with women with an infuriating masculine callousness. It frightened her—frightened her senseless.

Humiliation gave way to indignation at last. She decided if she ever made a fool of herself again in his presence, she would hang herself. That was it; she would simply hang herself. At the same moment she looked up to notice she had passed the turnoff to the small shanty town where the medicine woman was said to live.

Joy reined Libertine around and pressed her into a lively trot, but not more than ten hundred paces gone, she stopped again, practically running into the two men following her.

Libertine danced nervously, and Joy skillfully calmed her, while glaring furiously at the two mounted men she recognized from his ship. "Did he send you after me?' she asked.

"Aye miss," one man replied. "He did indeed."

Joy did not know Ram's men nearly as well as they knew her. Nor did she know that Joshua had asked Ram to extend his protection to her, a request Ram took seriously. Between Sean and himself, they had over a hundred and fifty men in Orleans alone, and for the last three weeks Joy had been watched everywhere she went. Had she known, she would have considered shooting the two where they sat as a clear message of what she thought of Ram Barrington's protection.

"Tell Mr. Barrington that he can go to the devil!"

"Believe me, he's been there and back." The other man laughed. "Though we'll be sure to relate your sentiments."

Oh, it was infuriating; he was infuriating. "Well, I'll not have his men follow me." She came to the point. "I'll lose you each and every time and yes," she said the exact moment she raised, the riding crop, "That is a challenge!"

Libertine leapt in the air and was off. For a long moment, the two men sat stunned by her brash boldness. Joy pressed her horse into a gallop, loosening the reins to permit the speed for which Libertine forever strived. She was one with the wind, and with the exhilaration of a winged flight, she lost them by the first bend in the road.

Still, she barely managed the rein necessary to slow and turn Libertine onto the narrow path winding alongside the tributary that eventually reached the shanty town. She recognized the path only because it came after a wooden bridge. Libertine trotted east, disappearing in the bayou forest, and when she heard the thunderous clamor of the two men's mounts pass on the wooden bridge, she had cause to wonder at the enormity of her thoughts and emotions that had made her pass by the turn in the first place.

About two miles later, the narrow path led to the tiny fishing village. A great wall of earthen dikes separated the wood houses from the river, forever battling times of seasonal swells. Cajun fishermen and free people of color lived in the modest, neat houses. Well tended gardens spread in front of each dwelling. Pretty potted plants and flowers couches and rocking chairs sat on the porches. Though she searched the surroundings, nothing suggested a voodoo witch.

Joy slipped from Libertine's back, stretching to draw the reins over her horse's head before looking curiously about. The place appeared deserted at this hour. A profoundly stillness pervaded the quaint grouping of homes, interrupted only by the rush of the river and the ever present distant cry of birds. A butterfly circled her thrice and made her smile, just as the sweet sound of a song broke through the forest.

Joy followed the sound to the edge of the trees on the wide bank, as her eyes discovered the path that led into the forest again. She felt a curious tingling, a prelude to an adventure. The sound was not from far away. She tethered Libertine to a tree and slipped down the path on foot, entering the wilderness of the forest.

The sound of a babbling brook nearby, yet unseen through the dense foliage, seemed to mirror the very song she followed. Bright sunlight burst through the shade of the towering, gnarled water oaks and the play of light with the melody, created an air of mystery and magic. She quickened her step.