Patricia Potter (18 page)

She felt the icy numbness lift, felt the pain and disillusionment and grief. She looked up at Jeremy.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Get aboard the
Specter.
Disable it.” Jeremy’s voice was flat as he said words he didn’t want to say.

Lauren closed her eyes. She remembered the sessions she’d had with Mr. Phillips, and then with some ship engineers. She had been told to try to get passage on Adrian’s ship, but at that time the intent was mostly to discover where he hid along the coast. Yet she was also shown how to disable a ship with little more than a handful of sand. She’d never thought she would have to do it.

Cannon. Adrian. Larry. The images all moved in a macabre dance in her mind. “Adrian …” The name came to her lips with difficulty. She had loved the sound. Now she thought back to her Latin lessons. Adrian—"the dark one.” She had thought him sunlight, but the name had been rightly given. “How? He said he doesn’t take passengers.”

Jeremy turned away from her. Dear God, how he hated this. “If you threatened to go with Captain Harding … ?”

“He’ll know,” Lauren whispered. “Captain Cabot will know something’s changed with me.” She couldn’t bear to say Adrian.

“Lauren, I wish I could help you. I wish you could just go home. But we need you now.”

Lauren turned on Jeremy. She felt used by everyone, even if she had asked to help. In Washington, she’d felt noble. Here, she just felt … dirty. “Why do you care so much?”

Jeremy hesitated. But he owed it to her; he was asking a great deal, and he knew it.

“I’m from Virginia, Lauren. My father was an overseer on a plantation. I grew up with the slave children. One boy was a particular friend. Before he was sent to the fields, we went fishing and hunting together, though he was never allowed to hold a gun. When he was ten, he was sent to the fields, while I was allowed to attend classes with the plantation owner’s children. Late at night, in secret, I used to teach him what I had learned. It was against the law to ‘educate’ slaves. My father would have beaten me if he’d known.”

Jeremy’s voice drifted off, and the usual brightness of the blue eyes dimmed. “I was trained as an overseer, while Cato worked the fields—though he was the smarter of the two of us. He grasped my lessons far faster than I did. But teaching him was the worst thing I could have done. It only fired his hunger to learn more—and to learn more, he had to escape.”

Lauren listened, mesmerized. So Jeremy, too, had a buried pain.

“He fell in love with another slave, who was sold away. Cato escaped and went after her, intending to take her North with him. I helped. I thought I was helping. But"—he shrugged hopelessly before he continued in the same tight voice—"someone followed me—my brother …”

The pain had turned into agony, and his voice was barely audible. “The three of us were taken by slave-catchers. They hanged Cato. I was sent to prison for five years.”

“And the woman …”

“I don’t know,” Jeremy said hopelessly. “After I was released from prison, there was no place to go. My family had disowned me, and God knows I could never face my brother again without … trying to kill him. I couldn’t stay in a country that tolerated slavery, that condoned what had happened. I found a berth on a ship headed for Nassau, and just stayed here. I got a job with a merchant, married his daughter, and eventually became his partner.”

“Corinne …”

He nodded. “She doesn’t know anything about my time in prison. I could never tell her.”

Lauren was silent, thinking how much Jeremy Case had suffered for doing what he thought was right, for following his convictions. He was still doing that. He could lose his business, even his life, to some hothead, if his sympathies and role were known.

Lauren had always been opposed to slavery, but in a distant sort of a way. It had never actually seemed real to her, but now it became very real as she thought about a man and woman in love, one sold away and the other dying because he wanted to be with her. No matter how she felt about Adrian Cabot, how could she not do everything she could to end that evil, to help halt the terrible bloodshed now going on? She
could
act. She
could
pretend. She
could
do whatever was necessary.

She straightened her back and put her hand on Jeremy’s. “I’ll do it,” she said.

His eyes looked at her sadly. “I wish it wasn’t necessary.”

Without any more words, they rose from the bench and, each lost in private thoughts, went inside.

The very ease with which Jeremy’s plan worked deepened Lauren’s guilt.

When Adrian appeared the next day, she met his eyes and told him she was ready to go back home to the South and do her part. “Will you take me?”

He seemed stunned. “But I thought you planned to stay here a while.”

“I did,” she said, “but I’ve been thinking how selfish that is. My father was a doctor. I know nursing. And the South needs those skills. I just can’t sit here and wait the war out.”

“I don’t take passengers,” he reminded her evenly, and Lauren knew he believed her and accepted her reasoning. She tried to dismiss the ugly snake of shame beginning to writhe inside.

Think of the wager, she told herself, as she met his worried blue eyes, as her gaze raked over his grim mouth. Both of them ignored Socrates, who looked from one to another as if understanding that a battle of wills was transpiring.

“Then I’ll go with Clay,” she said, just as evenly. “I’d rather go to Charleston … I have friends there, but …”

“Damn it, Lauren. The South’s no place for you now. Neither are those charnel houses they call hospitals.”

“You take chances,” she countered.

“That’s different.”

“Because you do it for money?” Lauren hadn’t meant to say that, but the anger that had been seeding inside her was now begging to be harvested.

They had gone into the garden after meeting in the store, and now Adrian stepped backward and leaned against the cotton tree, his face blank, although she saw a muscle working in his cheek.

“Yes,” he said flatly. “I do it for money. Does that offend you?”

Lauren knew she had said too much. Though he looked relaxed, there was a restless violence radiating from him, and she wondered whether it was from her question or from the natural beginning of nerves preceding a run. Jeremy had warned her not to go far by herself these days. All of the runners would be leaving soon, and their crews were volatile with a kind of excited anxiety. The waiting, she had been told over and over again, was the worst part of blockade running, and by the time the wait was over, emotions were at a high pitch. But she hadn’t expected Adrian to experience such human feelings. Except for the surface appearance of grief yesterday, he always appeared so sure of himself, so much in control, so much the gamemaster.

“Does it?” He repeated the words again.

Lauren saw the quiet anger in his eyes, and she couldn’t answer. She’d already said too much.

“I thought women liked money, no matter where it came from,” he said, and Lauren heard the sudden bitterness in his voice. It startled her even more than the suggestion of anger. She didn’t understand either.

“You’re angry,” she observed.

“I don’t like being judged,” Adrian replied. Especially by you, he wanted to add, but he couldn’t. He had been judged all his life, mostly to his detriment, especially by his father. He hadn’t expected it from Lauren, not after yesterday. But something was different about her today, although she was trying to hide it.

“I’m sorry,” Lauren said. “I wasn’t aware I was doing that. But aren’t you judging all women?”

Adrian flashed her that dazzling smile of his. There was chagrin in it, and a bit of mischief. “Aye,” he admitted. “I suppose I was.”

For a moment, Lauren had doubted Jeremy, doubted his information that there had been a wager, but Adrian’s barb about women had vanquished that slight doubt.

“Will you take me?” she asked again.

Lauren felt his touch, so light, so very light, as his fingers made a trail down her face to her chin, lifting it until her gaze met his directly.

“You are so determined?”

Lauren felt her skin burn, her heart quicken like a roll of drums, her breath catch in her throat. She was winning.

And she didn’t want to win.

“Yes,” she managed to say.

“I’ll take you, then,” he said softly. “I think you’ll be safer with me, in a civilian ship.”

The snake of guilt crept around her heart, squeezing it even tighter than it already was.

“Thank you.”

“I’m not sure you should be doing this.”

Lauren wasn’t either, but she was committed now. Wholly and irretrievably.

“Lauren …”

The sound of her name on his lips was so soft. She looked up at him. His face was somber, even a bit puzzled. “I’m sorry if I … upset you yesterday. I shouldn’t have come here then.”

He shouldn’t have come when he’d needed someone. That was what he was saying. But could she believe him? Could she ever believe him again? And if she did? It wouldn’t change anything. So she chose not to believe him.

Mr. Phillips had said he wouldn’t be hurt, only detained a few weeks. He would lose his ship, and cargo, but that was part of the risk he took for such large profits. Part of the gamble.

And he liked gambling.

“When will we leave?” Her tone was so much steadier than her heart was. Her hands were buried in the folds of her dress so he couldn’t see the way they clenched and unclenched.

“I’ll come for you tomorrow evening,” he said, his eyes searching, puzzled.

“Will you sail then?”

He shrugged, giving her neither a yes or no.

She was saved from any other conversation by Socrates, who had climbed the cotton tree and now leaped down next to her, holding out his arms to be picked up.

Adrian shook his head. “I’ve never seen him take to anyone as he has you. He’ll be glad to have you along.”

Lauren couldn’t resist her next words. She wanted to hear them even though she knew how unwise it was. “And his master?”

“No,” he said frankly. “It’s dangerous, Lauren. And you’re going to have to do everything I tell you, when I tell you. I want your promise on that.”

She swallowed. So many promises. All of them conflicting. “Yes,” she finally said.

Adrian was suddenly all business. “I have to go, some business with the governor. I’ll be here tomorrow night at eight … if you still want to go. Think about it carefully, Lauren.”

She nodded. He had no idea how carefully she would think about it.

He leaned down, his lips brushing hers. Lightly, this time. And with control.

“Good day, Lauren.”

Adrian could no longer ignore the messages from the governor, and went to see him.

“I have a disturbing report, Captain Cabot,” the governor said.

Adrian furrowed his eyebrows together. “How does that concern me?” He was already prepared; the bill of lading and description of cargo papers were in his hand.

“The U.S. Government claims you’re shipping cannon. You realize, of course, war goods are strictly prohibited by the Neutrality Act.”

“Of course, Governor. But someone’s mistaken. I have a list of my entire cargo here. Furniture, dress goods, women’s needles. Corsets. Brandy. Surely you don’t consider those military articles.”

The governor gave him a dry look. “You’ll swear to this?”

“Aye,” Adrian said. “I checked the crates myself; they’re all properly labeled, sealed since their inspection by British authorities in London.”

Which meant, they both knew, nothing. Bribes were commonplace in inspections. But it gave the governor the out he needed.

“You will be sailing soon?” The suggestion was quite obvious.

“Very soon.”

“I’ll have to make a written report of our conversation to the U.S. Government. But I’m very busy today and tomorrow. I may not get to it until Wednesday.”

Adrian grinned. “I understand about your heavy work load, Governor.”

“Have a safe trip, Captain.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Adrian left Government House and went to the Royal Victoria, where he’d left Socrates. He sauntered through the gardens, stopping by a giant cotton tree, which dwarfed the one in Jeremy’s garden. But it reminded him of Lauren. Something had happened in the brief span of time between last evening when he’d left her and today. There had always been an air of reserve about her, but never as strong as it had been this morning. And some of the brightness had faded from her eyes. Was it the decision to return to the South? Or was it he? Did it have something to do with the kiss yesterday, the kiss that had rocked his very soul?

He knew now how eager he had been to see her, though he hadn’t admitted it to himself, and how frustrated he’d felt when she had been so cool, even hostile. He recalled that she had also displayed some hostility when he’d first encountered her, but then she’d had reason. Socrates, after all, had nearly plunged her into the ocean. But now …

She was like a multifaceted gem. Every time he looked at her, he saw something new: a different shading, a deeper mystery, a new light or brightness or shadowing. Lauren challenged him, delighted him, interested him as no other woman had, evoking a tenderness he hadn’t known he had.