Passion's Joy (25 page)

Joy stopped dead in her tracks as her mind encountered, greeted, and measured those awful words. The sounds of the surrounding forest seemed suddenly loud and shrill: the creek rushing over its muddied gulley to feed the pond, the distant screech of crows, even the crackle of bush under Libertine's hooves in the distance and the sudden racing of her heart and breath.

"Sean," she said his name in a whispered plea of desperation. "Why are you doing this to

me?"

"I cannot tell you now," he replied, coming to stand behind her. "My reason will be

discovered in the future, and someday, I hope you will be able to forgive me for it. For now we shall leave it at my desire to give Ram a gift." The gift of his life, he thought.

She swung around to face him, her wide eyes searching probing. He wasn't going to tell her the reason, no matter how she pleaded, she saw. It made no sense why he was doing this, past wanting to give Ram something he had no right to possess.

Still, she started to protest, but a gentle but firm finger stopped her. “There will be no discussion, no protestation, no words of explanation. The conversation will conclude with an aye or a nay.”

The freedom of three human beings in return for her virtue. It was a small price indeed, and as the proposition stood, there existed only one answer. So, it was proposition itself that she addressed. "Is there nothing that I can say to make you withdraw this ... to make you give me those three people without my part?" It was a cry for help, but the very questions answered his. "Oh Sean." Her eyes pleaded desperately. "Please ... I can't... I—"

"What you can't do is refuse; your conscience—ah, what a wonderful thing!—will forbid you to refuse. I can add the rest; I won't let you sit, dwelling on it. For tomorrow, you will pay tonight. Tonight, my dear—" and now he smiled as he quietly pointed out—"the night of a new moon."

Twilight settled over the landscape as Joy Claret slipped into the waiting carriage. Upon arriving home, Joy informed Cory and the Reverent that she had met Madame

Beauchamp at the market and that dear lady had reported a small mishap—a sprained ankle—had confined Katie to bed for a spell. An invitation had been extended in the natural hope Joy's company would ease the tedium of her friend's convalescence. No one seemed to notice the carriage did not belong to the Beauchamps as the door was shut, and she was whisked quickly, noisily away.

Sean's presence seemed to consume the carriage; he was too large for the small space, though as always he seemed comfortable and at ease. She wished she could hate him. She wondered if that might make it easier. Yet the only thing that made the night in any way approachable was the solemn thought of three unsuspecting people waiting for tomorrow.

"You're very frightened, my dear. Here—'' He handed her a cask. "It might help a bit."

She took a long sip, then coughed as the hot liquid burned and choked, finally bursting like fire in her stomach. Sean chuckled and the familiar laughter affected her at least as much as the spirits.

Sean could never say why, but he noticed her reticule. He lifted it from her lap and opened it to find a night dress and a hair brush. The two items gave him a long moment's pause, and though he couldn't laugh presently, he looked forward to the day when he would tell Ram what she thought necessary on this, the first night in his bed.

He looked forward to the day when Ram, too, would laugh at it. "Is something amiss?" she asked shyly.

"Nothing, my dear." He turned to the reason he was escorting her into this auspicious night. "I didn't want to discuss it earlier; I didn't want to frighten you any more than you so obviously are. I must warn you, though. Ram will not be pleased when he discovers your deception."

Sean had already explained the necessity of her deception, of lying about her innocence, and this was perhaps the worst part. The only reason she could bare deceiving Ram was the idea he would never learn of it. "But how will he know?" She asked with alarm lifting on her face. "Will you tell him?"

A curious brow lifted, but then he realized the trouble. "Ah, it is your ignorance. Joy," he explained, "your innocence will be discovered in the act."

She lifted her eyes, suddenly wide with fear. "But I understood that such is not always the case; that a man can't always know?"

Sean would not explain Ram had more than enough experience to discover the only virgin ever to lay in his bed. "If he does discover it though," he said instead, "he will be angry. And Ram's anger is rather like a large sleeping monster, upon waking it grows and grows, long before it begins to retreat. You, my dear," he said solemnly, "are in no way capable of handling him like that. He would swallow you whole. I want his anger directed at me; I'm the only person who has any chance of surviving it. So, at the very first appearance of it, you are to leave, escape with any pretext— simply run from him. Do you understand?"

Her face paled, and she swallowed hard, but nodded. If she knew anything, it was how to escape. Nothing more was said. The minutes passed uncomfortably as the carriage moved quickly to its destination. To calm herself, Joy forced her thoughts to the three people she would be saving by this night.

Three human beings! Three—her mind stopped at the number—it seemed so arbitrary. It was arbitrary! Just as the carriage came to an abrupt stop at the ship, she grasped her reticule tightly to stop her trembling and blurted the number, "Six! I'll have six."

Sean only chuckled. "Ah, I knew you would try. I was willing to grant you the first number you tried. Six it is, but no more. As comfortably vulgar as my fortune is, I can ill afford freedom for every wretch in Louisiana."

The driver opened the door, and Sean escorted her down then guided her up the plank to the ship, ignorant all the way of the magnitude of her emotions brought on by his words.

All she suddenly knew was a certain horror at the limits of her imagination. Why hadn't she asked for a larger number? Each added number meant one person's freedom, one person's life! Why oh why, didn't she say ten or even twenty? Would Sean have agreed? Yes! Sean was quite wealthy, too. He owned three ships, an estate in Ireland, and he had once shown her the pictures he had transported aboard his ship. Just this small representation of his collection was worth a fortune. Oh God, why didn't she say twenty?

If she could only relive those last moments—

Consumed with these thoughts, she never noticed how much Sean had arranged. The Ram's Head was all but deserted, only two men remained on guard, and after greeting Sean, their attention

returned at once to their dice. Sean led her beneath the quarterdeck to the captain's quarters and opened the door, but went no further.

"Ram should be back within the hour." The last thing he said was, "Rest easy, my lady." He kissed her affectionately goodbye and shut the door.

The door shut, closing in on her numbness. She stared at the closed door, forcing herself not to open it and run in panic. She had no idea how long she remained frozen on the spot where Sean had left her, perhaps over half an hour; but abruptly she imagined Ram was already there, watching her, and she spun around with the horror of it.

The spacious and magnificent room greeted her with silence, though Ram's presence showed in every place she looked. She had seen his quarters twice before, and her impression remained, accented by the darkening light. A single lamp glowed from above his enormous rosewood desk, casting the room in a golden color that made the rich shades of maroon and dark blue in the fine tapestry rug, the bed quilt and the drapes, darker, muted, softer. Yet the blatant masculinity of the room seized her, threatening, yet mysterious.

She frantically looked for some single feminine touch, a bouquet of flowers, a sunny shade. Her gaze moved from the long dining table to the bookcase and back to the bed. There was no sign.

For the love of freedom!

She nervously bit her lip, swallowing her fear. What was a solitary night compared to six lives of freedom? Virtue was a small price indeed!

She walked slowly to the oversized bed, staring at the patched-velvet maroon and blue quilt, and for a moment, she tried to imagine the scene that was to happen there. A hand glided over the thickly bound drapes. She touched her mouth, remembering all too well his kisses, that strange surge of warmth rising through her, and she felt her pulse suddenly race, a tingling sensation of nervous anticipation.

Sean's instructions had been explicit. Hands trembling, she began to remove her clothes, feeling so oddly close to tears. For the love of freedom...

Like dominoes falling, three appointments had been cancelled, and Ram found a long night stretched before him, open and waiting to be filled. The unexpectedness of it brought him the familiar restlessness, as if his energies needed a place to be spent, and the idea brought a chuckle. He'd go for a long run and swim, then tackle some of the work on his mechanical device—a

mechanism that would greatly help in the iron mills—perhaps finishing the rare evening with a book.

Ram reached his ship, and seeing there was no one about to take his mount, he tied the stallion to a post and followed Rake up the plank. A nearly deserted ship greeted him. He bantered briefly with the two men left on guard, discovering the whole of his crew had been challenged to a drinking match by Seanessy's men at none other than the Red Barn.

Ram laughed, for it had been a very long time since the last match. The two crews, each fiercely competitive with the other, yet loyal to the end—not one man on either side wouldn't lay his life on the line to save another on the other side—worked out their competitive antagonism and aggressions with these match fights. Match fights went all the way back to Sean and his childhood.

Sean and he had developed it in order to survive their youth. They might be brothers in spirit, but as boys they were so closely cut from the same mold, it had erupted in constant battles— knock down, drag out fights so to speak. The fights kept both of them in bruises, broken noses and jaws, sometimes broken limbs. Poor Mary! She tore out her hair in distress, and more than once— he remembered with a smile—she fell to her knees with tears, begging them to stop before they ended up killing each other. They in turn answered those tears with the amusement and condescension common to men confronting a woman's concern.

Standing there at the ship's rail, watching the river's ceaseless lure through the darkening light, Ram smiled at the memories. Neither Sean nor himself could stop their fighting; it was more fun than riding, shooting or any of their wild boyhood games. Predictably, they developed unnatural fighting skills, skills that grew as they did, and this, taken with both their unusual height and strength, gave them an advantage in any fighting situation.

God knows, there had been many of those.

Trouble had arrived as they reached adolescence. Mary's fears became a reality due to the ever-increasing brute power of their fighting ability. Aye, despite that, no matter how bad the brawls became, Sean and he would inevitably end up rolling on the ground, laughing through their pain. Yet, as they began to reap permanent effects, they gradually started working conditions into the fights.

Now as men, they fought only after drinking to a point where they could hardly stand, let alone harm each other, and then only with their legs tied—a man's legs were at least twice as strong as his arms and fists. Once these weapons were taken out, they could fight in relative safety, till one

or the other fell. The crews matched up in the same way—roughly based on size and strength—and though he had seen some great fights among their men, none drew the wild excitement and interest as Seanessy's and his own. Thinking on it, realizing it had been almost a year since his last match fight with Sean, he laughed suddenly, deciding to change his night's plans.

"Are ye thinkin' on goin' down there?" his man asked upon hearing Ram's amusement. "If ye are, I'll ask ye to put Rake on guard, 'cause I've not ever—not in five years— missed a match between ye and Seanessy."

"I'm thinking about it," Ram called back as he moved to his cabin. Rake barked excitedly, but stayed with the two men, who had a basket of fried chicken between them. Ram opened the door, and still chuckling, he stepped inside. Moving to his desk chair, he removed his boots, then his shirt. He'd go for a short run and see how he felt. Seanessy would have a head start on the drinking and this—

It was in that instant that he glanced up and saw the small figure sitting in his bed. For a blessedly long time, he simply stared because he could not believe the reality of the vision, let alone understand it. He felt as if some malicious god toyed with the long denied fantasy of his mind, spinning the vision of her loveliness in his bed to torment him.

She sat with her legs tucked under her, holding a quilt over her body as though to protect herself. The long unbound hair spilled over the quilt, and her eyes were lowered, as she nervously bit her lip. The soft light illuminated the delicate features of her face, and she looked deceptively angelic and young. God, he thought, she’s ever so beautiful. With an alarming mix of curiosity and amusement, Ram rose slowly and approached the vision his mind had created many times before.

.Joy’s fear had mounted throughout her short wait and by this point, she couldn't have spoken, even if her imagination could guess what it was a woman said to a man after surprising him by appearing unexpectedly in his bed. She focused only on the unnaturally loud pounding of her heart. He remained silent as well as he stood over her staring down. He finally reached a hand to gently brush the long loose hair back over her shoulders.

She made no protest; she still did not look up. He took the quilt from her, lifting it, removing the obstruction to his view. She wore only a thin cotton nightdress, one that teased with the barest hint of transparency. As he stared at the beauty waiting for his touch, and though she tried, she could not stop her response; her arms crossed over herself as her cheeks burned with a maiden's modesty.