Passion's Joy (21 page)

unendurable. He cancelled, and with the unusual free evening, he sat in his desk chair, a book spread on his lap and his legs on his desk. A single lamp shone from above. A pitcher and glass of water, another of brandy, sat on his desk.

Rake pricked his ears and started barking. The huge dog stood up, suddenly agitated. He pranced back and forth, barking. There was some kind of commotion outside, dogs barking in the distance. "Settle down, Rake," he ordered indifferently.

The dog lowered with a whimper, but as Ram returned to his book, his man suddenly called alarm. Rising, Ram went to the door. His hand had only touched the knob when the door burst open and Joy Claret flew into his arms.

She was flushed and breathless, looking as though she had wandered onto a battlefield and lost. A small bruise showed on her cheek, and there was a bloodied cut on her arm where her shirt had ripped. An enormous fear shone like madness in her eyes, and all this was grasped in the instant she gasped, "Help me ... please—"

While he didn't know the details of the story, he could easily guess—disastrously involved in freedom fighting.

"Here they come! They're after her, Ram!" one of his men shouted down from his watch atop the quarter deck.

"Get out, boy," Ram told his dog. Rake never hesitated, racing out the door. The dog was no longer barking, for true to his nature, he would not even warn of his protective attack. "Hold them off for a minute, Eric."

"Hell, we'll pick 'em off if you want!" another man said with a chuckle.

"Don't be an ass!" Ram shouted back, yet an appreciative grin betrayed him. "Absolutely no shooting!"

He slammed the door shut. Joy fought desperately for some control. The mere sight of him, let alone the feel of his arms around her, brought an overwhelming surge of emotions. Desperate and panicked, she had looked up to see his ship moored, to see the only absolute refuge for her, and she had known he would be there. Tonight he would be there!

Inexplicably her emotional swell crashed, changing in the short seconds it took Ram to advance with an unwavering amused look of a predator catching a trapped and helpless animal. He raised a hand, and she instinctively cowered as though about to receive a blow, but he only swiped her hat and wig from her head. Hair pins fell to the floor, and her long braids swung free. "What are you—"

He moved with swift speed and assurance, so fast she never had a chance to react. His hands were upon her, everywhere it seemed, ripping her shirt open, pulling it from her. She cried, trying to twist backward and away from the assault, but he caught her hands and trapped them behind her back as a dagger appeared from nowhere. The dark gaze never left her terror stricken face as, not bothering with the buttons or the cord used as a belt, he simply sliced diagonally across her abdomen and her pants dropped in a heap to the floor.

She stood naked before him, so shocked, mute and confused that her mouth opened to cry out but no sound was forthcoming. Ignoring her, Ram moved with such quick sure strides, one might reasonably assume he had rehearsed what he did next a hundred times. He swept the pile of clothes up into his hand but separated the hat with the wig glued in it. He smiled as he placed this on the top shelf of his bookcase. "I think I'll save this as memorabilia but these"—he held the remaining boys' clothes as he moved next to the lantern—"I will see in hell."

Dogs barked, horses neighed and men shouted outside. Ram lifted the glass from the lantern and caught the clothes under the fire while simultaneously opening a desk drawer and finding a long cigar. He lit the cigar by the fire of the clothes, puffing till a sweet scented cloud of smoke rose in the air mixing and covering the smoke from the clothes. Holding the flaming clothes, he calmly walked, to the dressing water, waited till the flames touched his hand, and doused them.

Still stunned and quite speechless, she watched as he turned back to her. A smile lifted on the handsome features, a strange light appearing in his gaze as he stood directly in front of her, staring down. The startling beauty of her unclad state did not pass unnoticed. Her arms crossed over her breasts with a maiden's modesty, taunting maddeningly as he stared; the small flattened waist, the beckoning curves of her slender hips and the long lines of her legs were swept with the heat of his gaze. Yes indeed, she was carved for a man's love.

"Joy Claret," her name was whispered against her ear, as his hands drew hers behind her again, bringing her against him. "You have come to fulfill my fantasy. Do you know, my love"— his finger traced a line over her mouth—"how often I have dreamt of these lips?"

She shivered but with warmth, her body knowing what was being said and done to her, but her mind was somehow firmly fixed on the danger, the burning clothes, the men outside who would be hanging her. Ram held her chin in his hand and chuckled briefly at her obvious state of distress before taking her lips in his.

It was like a dam bursting. Despite the fear shaking her knees or because of it, heat surged so swiftly into her limbs she half thought he had lifted her under the fire of the lantern. Deep and devastating, the kiss lasted but a minute before the door burst open and two men stepped inside with pistols drawn.

Ram broke the kiss with a feigned start, turning around but careful to keep her figure concealed from the intruders' view. Pistols lowered as shock lifted into the expression of each man. Cain stood next to none other than the Orleans' constable, who had been roused from bed by the chase.

"What the hell is this?" Ram demanded in a tone marked with a clear and natural authority. Embarrassment quickly replaced shock and Cain stumbled back.

"Monsieur Barrington!" the constable exclaimed. "Sorry... Mercy Madonna, we did not know you were in here with a—"

"We're chasing a boy." Cain recovered first. He of course knew Lord Barrington, and his only thoughts now were that they absolve themselves from certain disaster. "Nigger runnin' and his horse is out there—he ran onto your ship!"

"A boy? Well, gentlemen," Ram said, lifting a long braid and bringing it to his nose, drawing deeply the scent. "I can assure you there's no boy in here.''

"No, no, of course not. We're checking the rest of the ship but—" The constable retreated to call out to his men, "Find him?"

"Not yet" came a quick reply.

"Well, we'll get the boy yet. Sorry to disturb you. Very—"

"And how has a mere boy managed to be running Negroes?" Ram could not help but ask. "Ah, it's the damnedest thing an' to Hades if I know," the constable's words quickly burst

into a string of fluent French curses.

"Sweetheart, this should only take a minute," Ram said, motioning the constable out before he moved.

"So, what happened?" he asked as he, too, stepped outside and shut the door.

Cain explained as they stood on deck waiting for the others to return from the search, his voice raised to be heard above the yelps of the dogs, which Rake kept on the road.

"We're from Garden Court—" "Simone's place?"

"Aye, and we're missing a man and set the dogs out. Picked up the scent real quick, they did, and we were off. Three or so miles toward town the pack split. I was following the dogs on the road, and suddenly this boy leaps out from the forest. Ain't never in all my days seen a horse and rider like this, no sir. Well, we fired on him, but missed. That horse runs right through the pack!

Can you believe it?"

Ram assured him he could not.

“Well, the chase was on. Then we come to the triple cross and hell, but turpentine's been spilt! Don't know how the boy spilt it when he's riding so hard and we're so close, but there it was. Then, finally the dogs pick up his scent again and we're on the road to town."

"Now"—Cain motioned with his pistol—"I didn't see it, but to hear it told, that horse went through town like bullet fire! Took a jump over cotton bales that I did see. Five feet if it's an inch!"

"Is that right?" Ram appeared but mildly interested, a dark brow lifting.

"Cleared the jump if you can believe it but fell about two miles after that. Came on him as he was jumping back on that horse. Chased him to here. Saw him go up the plank with my own eyes."

The men returned empty-handed. The constable swore and ordered them back. "He's on this ship somewhere! Find him!" And with more cursing, he left to search, too.

"What we can't figure," Cain said, "is what the boy has to do with our nigger? Must have given him a ride somewhere, but still, for the dogs to be this hot on his trail, you'd swear the horse was Jim Boy."

Td like to see that horse."

"Got away," Cain said. "That horse was lathered up real good but still got some fight left and reared up, then tore off."

"I see." And he did. He saw that to keep her safe he'd have to cast her neck in bronze so no one else could break it, least of all herself.

Joy waited nearly an hour before the door opened and Ram returned. She was so fraught with anxiety, she practically jumped him. "What happened?"

"What happened?" He leaned casually against the door. "Well, not finding a boy on board, they finally reasoned he'd jumped into the water and drowned. They're going to look for your body on the morrow. Right now they're headed back to where the pack originally split to start again. The dim wits abruptly realized a boy," he drawled, "could not have caused such mischief alone, so I sent some of my men with them to make certain their efforts are fruitless. Then I sent another group of men off on the Gainsport road, where I assume the good Reverend and Sammy, along with this Jim Boy, will be found."

"Oh Ram—"

"No!" He held up a hand. "Don't thank me. I did it only to get the Reverend's hide before the dogs do, which I will, for there's no excuse for idiocy, the unprecedented—" and on and on he went, swearing and cursing the Reverend up one side and down the other, then turning on her. His voice rose with aristocratic viciousness, his arms waved violently as he stomped back and forth, stopping only to shake an accusing finger at her.

No one could listen to such a tirade and remain unaffected. Joy was no different. He was furious, yet the violence of his anger was not likely to be as deadly as a wild chase with pistols, men and dogs. So, while her head snapped at each thrash of his tongue and she was held mute and helpless, perhaps spellbound by his furious eruption, the increasingly gruesome nature of his threats, she nonetheless felt oddly relieved.

He stopped abruptly in the middle of his worst threat and seemed to lose wind all at once, mercifully finishing the sentence with a shake of his head. Then he sighed, leaned back against the wall and just stared at her.

Why couldn't she be like other women? Why couldn't she keep to her home, sitting about a fire, reading a book or engaged in embroidery, local gossip or music, or any of a hundred other pleasant, tranquil domestic activities? Why did she have to be running in and out of infirmaries where disease was rampant, writing those hell rising anonymous articles in the paper—he had recognized her words as easily as he would have recognized his own—and, the very worst, why does she have to ride at neck breaking speeds through the dark night, chased by dogs and men with pistols? A stunt few men would dare to save their own lives and yet here she stood, this small slip of a female, out to change the entire plight of the Negro race!

The rhetorical questions remained unanswered, fading slowly save one: Why did she have to be so lovely, standing there wrapped in a sheet? Each detail was studied: the long hair bound in

pigtails that made her look so young, too young; the arch of thin brows over the wild, yet somehow bewildered, look in the large blue eyes with a shadow of thick lashes beneath; that small pointed nose, the tiny white teeth nervously biting the sweetest lips it was ever his misfortune to taste; the delicately pointed chin, the long neck leading to straight slender shoulders and the damnable sheet that now hid the beckoning curves of her small body, the startling beauty of which he had only moments to know.

The minutes ticked away in silence until suddenly, not understanding exactly why, she blurted, "I need some clothes—I have to go! The Reverend will need me and—"

Ram did not respond past the barest hint of amusement that fought briefly with the intensity of his gaze. My God, the vixen would tempt the celibacy of the pope! Yet he could not, would not have her. He would not be her first, for it would mean being her only, and he had not the freedom to take that binding role. The day at the lake had been a mistake; he would not make another, at least if his feet could find the way to the door. The two steps felt like a climb to the highest peak of Mount Everest.

"Where are you going?" she asked as he turned away.

There never was an answer, just a lingering look of the dark mystery of his gaze. Then he was gone. She flung herself after him, reaching the door just as she heard it lock behind him.

Locked! Trapped! She cried out, then screamed bloody murder, pounding furiously.

It was after a long hour of this, that she finally gave up and collapsed on his bed. She'd kill him for this! Nay, murder was too good for the likes of—

She stopped suddenly as the maddening sweet scent of him filled her senses. She turned her face into the pillows, drinking the intoxicating scent. Like a potion, within minutes exhaustion claimed her as swiftly and surely as darkness had hit after her fall, and she was asleep.

* * * * *

Seanessy met Joy many times in the following weeks, always unexpectedly and usually when she was out riding. She delighted in his company, and for all his attention, it amounted to naught but a growing friendship and distraction from the ever mounting worries at home. He

dropped his air of arrogant reserve, amusing her with his wit, charm, and humor. They talked of many, many things—everything from the volatile politics of the day to thoroughbred racing spurs

—yet it was the anecdotes from his and Ram's life she enjoyed the most. She learned a good deal more about Ram, refused to believe many of these tales, but was entertained and amused nonetheless. Yet for all of Sean's unexpected friendship, she always felt as if she was the subject of his study, as though he watched her responses and measured her words much as a biologist might study little beasties under a microscope. She once questioned him about this, but all he said was: "But of course I study you, my dear. Each life is a piece of art, each person an artist. Your art is as delightful as it is interesting."