The Light in the Darkness (20 page)

Bundling Jenny in blankets, she urged her into the massive fireplace, thanking God as she did so that her husband had built the fireplace out of good solid brick, rather than of wood coated on the inside with clay, as so many of the poorer planters were forced to do. There was every chance that the fireplace would survive the gale, even if the roof were blown off. Her little girl was going to survive this night.

She straightened. “Ye stay there,” she instructed fiercely. “No matter what ’appens, ye stay there. And in th’ mornin’ go ter yer uncle’s ’ouse. ’E’ll take ye in.
”

She turned the massive oak table onto its side and placed it in front of the fireplace to protect her daughter from flying debris. “I love ye,” she whispered. Jenny stared over the top of the table timidly as her mother walked toward the door. Suddenly she realized just what it was her mother intended to do. “Mother, no!” she shrieked. “Mother!”

Her mother forced the door open against the screaming wind and stepped out into the wild storm.

Despite her mother’s instructions, Jenny shoved the table away, her ague-weakened muscles made stronger by fear, and ran toward the door, mindlessly wailing for her mother. She clung to the doorjamb and the doorknob, fighting not to be ripped from the comparative safety of the house despite the awful wind.

“Mother, come back!” she screamed, but the wind whipped her words away before they were out of her throat. There was no chance that her mother could hear her above the storm, and little chance that she would listen anyway. She had already made her decision.

Jenny watched in helpless horror as a large branch struck the ground right next to her mother.

Her mother kept walking, staggering against the tremendous force of the wind, directly toward the little creek, which was raging far over its banks from the heavy rain and the exaggerated high tide. Jenny knew that her mother could not swim—not that an experienced swimmer could have kept her head above water in the torrent. As her mother stumbled into the roiling black water of the creek, she fell and was lost to view.

Sobbing hysterically, Jenny managed to slam the door shut and stagger back across the chamber. Pulling the table back against the fireplace and the blankets over her head, she huddled pitifully in the big fireplace, trying to shut out the dreadful howling of the storm, and trying to forget the horrid vision of her mother’s suicide. She tried to sleep, but her few moments of rest were disrupted by nightmares in which wolves with slavering jaws stalked her, or in which a dark thundering river swept her from the house. All night the gale raged. Only toward dawn did it abate, and then Jenny dropped off into a haunted sleep.

When she woke up the sun was shining through an enormous hole in the roof where a pine tree had fallen onto the house, crushing it. Jenny managed to climb out of the house and searched for the slaves. They had vanished, very probably taking advantage of the opportunity to run away.

With no possessions other than the ragged gown she wore, knowing that she was now alone in the world, without parents or brother, Jenny embarked on the journey to her uncle’s tavern.

As she finished her story in a quavering voice, Jennifer found that her cheeks were wet with tears. Grey was staring at her with horror and pity written plainly across his aquiline features. Now he took her hand gently into his.

“Don’t cry, darling,” he murmured, using the endearment that her mother had always used. Jennifer felt her throat constrict painfully at his use of the word, and she glanced away, embarrassed that the memories of her
family, which she had thought securely locked away, could buffet her so.

“I was always alone after that,” she confessed in a hoarse whisper. “I had no one, no one at all. Once I brought home a puppy I found in the woods—I had always wanted a dog—and my uncle drowned him. He said he wouldn’t waste coin on yet another mouth to feed.”

“I am very sorry,” Grey whispered gently, stroking her hand. “I should not have asked you to tell me the story, but I had no idea … and now I’ve caused you distress at a time when you need your rest. I’m so sorry, Jennifer.”

Jennifer dashed the tears away with her free hand. “I am all right,” she said in a surprisingly level voice. “It all happened so long ago. I had forgotten.…” She paused. “How
could
I have forgotten them? I miss them so much. I miss them.…” Her voice broke abruptly, and Grey, to his own great surprise, pulled her into his arms and let her sob against the solidity and warmth of his chest, stroking her long golden hair and making the soothing noises one makes to comfort a lost child.

She looked up again at last, her eyes widening at the sight of his face so close to her own. But his face seemed less forbidding than usual, softened by unwonted sympathy and compassion. For a moment he seemed to be the same gentle man who had cared for her while she was ill, who had stayed by her side for three days and slept in a chair while she lay in a fever-induced stupor.

“I should not cry,” she said, voice steady and eyes calm, if red rimmed, as they met his own. “My mother was sweet and good, but what happened occurred long ago. It is not good to dwell overmuch on the past.”

Grey sensed a reproach to himself in her words, and the kind, gentle man he had been for a brief moment vanished, to be replaced in an instant by the surly husband she was accustomed to.

“Your mother’s last act,” he said with brutal frankness, “was not the act of a good, sweet woman, but of a selfish one.”

Jennifer was still acutely aware of his muscled arms, casually imprisoning her against him, and the contrast between his affectionate stance and his harsh words bewildered her. She looked indignant. “My mother was
not
selfish.”

“Self-absorbed, then,” Grey said implacably. “She abandoned a terrified young girl in a hurricane. She left you to the tender mercies of her brother, even though she must have known he was abusive. It is true that she had gone through a great deal, but nothing can justify or excuse such behavior.”

“She loved my father and brother dearly,” Jennifer retorted rather sharply. “She was inconsolable after their deaths.”

“She was selfish,” Grey argued vehemently. “When she lost them she thought of no one but herself. She could not see your pain for her own.”

Her dark eyes stared directly into his while she considered his statement. “You may be right,” she conceded at last. “She had no thought for anyone but herself and how empty her life had become. That is not love—it is merely loneliness.”

Grey flushed at her words, realizing that her words could be applied to himself as well as to her mother. “Are you implying that I did not love Diana?” he asked in a low, savage growl.

“I did not mention Diana,” Jennifer countered cautiously, aware of the fury beginning to burn like molten silver in his eyes.

“Didn’t you?”

“If you want to know the truth,” Jennifer said, as tactfully as possible, “I believe that you once loved Diana. But now … now you love nothing more than a memory. It seems to me that love must change and grow, or it is not love.”

Grey fought the impulse to drop his arms from around her, leap to his feet, and stalk from the chamber in high
dudgeon. For once, he forced himself to listen to what she had to say.

Though he longed to deny it, brutal self-honesty forced him to admit that much of what she said was true. His love for Diana, the ardent and earthy love of a young man for a beautiful woman, had somehow altered over the years into a kind of reverence, as if Diana had been a creature of light and poetry rather than a flesh-and-blood human being. Intellectually, if not emotionally, he knew she had been no goddess, but merely a mortal woman.

Diana’s ghost could not hope to compare to the girl in his arms.

Jennifer was solid, warm, and delicate, almost fragile, in his embrace, one of her firm young breasts pressing against his chest. Her hair, which Catherine had managed to comb into a semblance of order that morning, cascaded down her back, brushing lightly over his arm. A powerful, aching surge of desire swept him.

It was peculiar to actually desire someone besides the memory that had haunted him for years. He had made love to other women solely to relieve the demands of his body, but desire—the longings of the mind and the heart—had not been involved. For the first time, he realized that he desired Jennifer. Not just her figure, which had held such attraction for him that night he had seen her swimming in the river, but all of her—her lithe but gently rounded body, her lovely face, her quick and agile mind. He wanted to hear the music that she heard, and most of all he yearned to make her desire him as he desired her.

Jennifer was real. And Diana was not. Not any longer.

He was aware of a sudden, overpowering impulse to tilt up her chin and press his lips against her soft, yielding mouth, to push her back against the pillows and make love to her until she cried out with pleasure. Incredibly erotic images exploded in his brain as he held her against his chest.

But Jennifer was fragile, still recovering from a week of
illness. With an enormous exertion of willpower he dropped his arms from around her and stood up. She looked up at him in confusion, bewildered by his long thoughtful silence.

“You may have a point,” he said curtly. “However, I do not believe I wish to discuss it further. I have matters I must attend to. If you will excuse me?” Nodding to her coolly, he strode from the chamber rapidly.

After an hour’s hard and exhausting ride on his bay stallion, he convinced himself that what he felt for Jennifer was no different than what he felt for any other young and attractive woman. He had been sitting on her bed, with her virtually curled up in his lap—of course he had been aroused by her nearness!

He did not return to Jennifer’s chamber to visit her. Within a week, she had recovered from the illness with the resilience of youth. Grey took care not to be alone in her chamber with her again.

He visited his mistress every day for a week. But for some reason, the sex was remarkably unfulfilling.

Grey could not imagine why.

A
ugust was as hot and humid as July had been, the intense heat unbroken by any rain. It seemed to Jennifer that it would never rain again. As she regained her health, she and Grey resumed their daily rides, though they never spoke of her illness, or of what had happened between them at the river. Sometimes Jennifer glimpsed an odd expression in Grey’s metallic eyes when she turned and met his gaze, but he always dropped his eyes hastily and looked away.

Nothing had changed.

They rode through the forest one afternoon, far from Greyhaven. “We are nearly on Lightfoot land here,” Grey remarked, startling Jennifer, for it was virtually the first thing he had said to her all day. He was more silent and remote than ever these days. “We should turn and go back.”

Jennifer nodded. They turned their horses and cantered back down the path. A sudden rumble startled her, and she looked up. The green canopy of trees overhead could not hide the black clouds that hung ominously low in the sky. “I do believe it’s going to rain,” she said.

“God knows we could use it,” Grey responded with a planter’s sincerity. Drought meant ruined crops. Rain meant the salvation of his crops—and cool weather. He felt a cool breeze and realized that the rain was nearly upon them. He should have been paying more attention to the weather.

It had become impossible for him to concentrate on anything when Jennifer was near.

A cold drop of water fell onto his hand. They needed to find shelter. “This way,” he called, turning his stallion down a little-used path.

Jennifer, who had never been down that particular path, looked at him warily. “Is this a shortcut?”

“No,” Grey said shortly, “but there is an old cabin down this way. We won’t be able to get back to the house before the rain comes, and I don’t want you to get drenched. You’ve just recovered from an illness, after all.”

The thought that he cared for her well-being filled her with warmth, and she followed him without further questions.

A loud clap of thunder startled her mare, and the horse reared suddenly. Certain that she was going to fall, Jennifer caught at the horse’s mane frantically, dropping the reins in her panic. Without guidance or control, the mare jumped forward at a gallop. Grey quickly maneuvered his stallion into the mare’s path, cutting off her escape and letting the enormous beast shoulder her to a halt. Catching the frantic animal by the bridle, he spoke softly to her until her eyes stopped rolling. Jennifer sent him a look of gratitude, all too aware that she would have been unseated had the mare bolted, and he smiled with a rare show of sympathy.

“We’re almost there,” he said soothingly. Whether he was soothing the mare or Jennifer, she could not be certain.

They pulled up their horses in front of an old, weather-beaten cabin of rough-hewn boards that had once been whitewashed. Most of the paint had long ago blistered off. It had probably once been slave quarters, Jennifer speculated, and realized that the house Grey and Catherine had grown up in must have been in this vicinity.

Dismounting, they dashed into the cabin just as the rain began falling in earnest. Looking around the dingy cabin, Jennifer saw that her supposition had been correct.
Along the walls stood the roughly constructed furnishings that were characteristic of slave quarters—a bed and two chairs. In the corner she saw a dust-covered stringed instrument, similar to the ones that the Greyhaven slaves often played in the evenings. Curious, she brushed away some of the cobwebs and picked it up to examine it.

“It’s called a banjar,” Grey told her, settling into a crudely built chair.

Jennifer plucked experimentally at the strings, but the instrument was far out of tune. Cringing at the discordant notes, she put the banjar back down on the floor and glanced around curiously.

It was beginning to strike her as peculiar that there was only one bed in the cabin. Slaves did not have the luxury of having chambers to themselves. There must have been many beds lining the walls of this building at one point in time. Someone had removed all but one cot. Walking across the room, she sat on the mattress. It was soft, filled with goose down, just as her bed at Greyhaven was.