On the nineteenth, three days before Easter, Jamie returned. Jassy was perfectly cordial to him. She was warm to Robert and to their guests.
Jamie did watch her. He watched her, and the glow in her eyes, and the striking beauty that it gave her. He watched her come alive for the other men, and despite his best intentions, his temper slowly simmered and seethed.
At dinner she laughed and flirted and played the perfect hostess. She was quick to suggest music, and she had certainly planned her entertainment, for she had musicians ready at her behest. He did not dance with her, nor did she carry the child any longer, and so he had no excuse to send her from the floor. He stared at her as she swirled in some man’s arms, and he told himself bitterly that she was a hussy, had always been one, and that he had been a fool to marry her. Then he would remember that he had been the one to teach her what she knew about passion, and his throat would tighten and his stomach knot, and everything within him would burn. He had told her that he would set her free. He would do so.
Furious and anguished, he had but one avenue open to him. He left the house.
On Easter morning he rose early and looked into her room. Daniel slept sweetly in his cradle, but Jassy was nowhere to be seen. Anxious, Jamie ran out of the house and leapt upon his horse without hailing a groom. Bareback, he rode with a vengeance from the compound and out of the open gates of the palisade.
He found Jassy with Sir Cedric, far beyond the walls of the palisade. She was laughing delightedly and pretending a sweet innocence when it came to the use of firearms.
She was dressed in royal-blue velvet over a softer shade of linen. The gown was ruffed with white lace over black, and her breasts seemed to press quite dangerously against the bodice.
She was more beautiful that day than he had ever seen her, her eyes alive with laughter, the sound of that laughter like a melody of spring. Her cheeks were flushed, and she was as lithe and slender as a little wood nymph. She held the musket then, and flashed Sir Cedric her stunning smile as she looked to him for advice on the right position in which to hold the musket. A group of Indians came from the far western woods. Jamie raised a hand in acknowledgment, but other than that, he barely noticed them, for his eyes were on his wife. The Indians knew that the settlers were preparing for a Christian holy day. The Powhatans were probably bringing food and gifts, and they were certainly interested in the things that would take place. He should probably go greet them, but most of the Indians had good friends among the settlers and would be all right.
He was not all right himself.
Some invisible line in his temper stretched taut as wire, and then snapped.
He had done everything he could. He had made her his wife, and he had fallen in love with her. He had offered her freedom.…
And she seemed keen on taking him up on the offer. She was behaving as if she were free right now. No, she was behaving worse than that. She was a flirt, a tease. She was slowly and carefully cultivating and charming and possessing every man she met.
His head reeled with a jagged ache, as if it had exploded with a charge of black powder. Barely in control, he nudged his horse and came nearer the pair, watching as Sir Cedric helped Jassy align the musket upon the rest.
He paused at last behind the two of them. Jassy fired the musket and laughed with pleasure as her ball struck the target.
“Milady, you’re a natural!” Sir Cedric congratulated her.
“Do you think so, really?” she asked, dimpling prettily, and flushing a lovely shade of rose. Her lips seemed like a shade of wine that day. Her hair was pulled back from her forehead with ribbon but spilled down her back and caught the glow of the coming sun. She was radiant and fascinating. Jamie’s loins thundered along with his head, and he thought that it had been an endless time since he had touched her. It had been since he had realized how deeply and irrevocably he had fallen in love. Since he had worried about endangering their babe.
Daniel was over a month old now. And she was certainly behaving like a woman in the finest health.
“A perfect shot, my love. Alas, poor Cedric! She cons you, I’m afraid. Jassy is a natural, and has been for some time. Her accuracy is frightening. She aims her barbs, and they do strike, swift and sure.”
Jassy spun around, looking at him. Cedric, at a loss, and yet aware of the terrible tension suddenly around him, laughed nervously. “Lady Cameron! You have had lessons before.”
“Yes,” she murmured sweetly. She kept a hostile and wary eye upon Jamie. “But none so gently given, Sir Cedric. You are a wonderful marksman, and a superb teacher.”
“But the lesson is over,” Jamie said, looking down at her from atop his mount.
“I rather thought that we had just begun,” Jassy told him.
“You have thought wrong,” he said softly. He dismounted from his horse and strode toward her. “I think we should go for a ride, madame.”
“I do not care for a ride.”
“And I do not care what you care for, milady. Come—now.”
She stood stubbornly, hesitating for just a moment too long. Jamie stepped forward again and furiously swept her off her feet, striding back to his horse and tossing her rudely upon it. Her hair flew and tossed about her in a sudden disarray as she scrambled for her balance. Looking at her, Jamie knew what he wanted from her at that moment. He knew exactly what he wanted.
“Jamie Cameron, you—”
“Excuse us, Cedric, will you please?” Jamie said politely. He leapt up behind Jassy, nudging his heels hard into the horse’s flanks. They took flight, southwestward, toward the deep forest.
Her hair slapped against his face with the force of the wind. He inhaled the clean, perfumed scent of her, the blond locks, and of her flesh. The wind seemed to rage, and the earth to churn beneath him, and all the while the violence and anger seemed to burn in his loins, to thunder in his head. Her body was rigid before his, and she gripped on to the horse’s mane. His thighs locked against hers as they rode the animal bareback, coming closer and closer to the dense thicket of trees.
He at last slowed the horse, and when he entered into a trail that led to a copse of trees, he reined in. Visible through the pines and hemlocks was a brook, trickling softly and beautifully and white-tipped through the forest. Below them lay a bed of soft fallen pines, and all about them came the chirp and song and melody of birds.
Jamie did not notice much of nature. He dismounted, casting his leg over her, leaping to the ground. He turned around and stared at her while he reached for her. Her eyes were dusky, unreadable, in the green light of the forest, but he sensed that a spark of cold fury burned brightly within her.
“Come on, get down!” he snapped.
“You are the rudest individual I have ever met.”
“Get down here.”
“Make me.”
“I damned well intend to!”
He wrenched her down from the horse and onto her feet before him. The vixen! She cast back her head and glared at him with a raw challenge. He held on to her shoulders, and he was tempted to shake her until she begged for forgiveness, until she fell to her knees before him.
She wasn’t about to beg for anything, or so it seemed. Her hair was wild, and her breasts heaved excitingly with the flame of her exertion. “What do you think you’re doing?” she spat out.
“Me?” He slipped a foot behind her ankle, causing her to cry out and fall to the earth, yet held in his arms, she came down gently upon the bed of pines. He came atop her, and then she swore, suddenly and furiously, struggling against him.
“You, Lord Cameron! You—”
“Me, milady, your husband. Alas, I am not the gentle teacher that Sir Cedric is! I haven’t Robert Maxwell’s flattering phrases, and God alone knows what else I lack. Constraint. I have offered you freedom aboard the Lady Destiny, but you can’t even wait the time to board her to taunt other men before me.”
“I have taunted no one!”
“You have swayed your hips and l
aughed and spoken and charmed and seduced. And, madame, you have done so well. God damn you, lady, for I meant to give you what you craved; you so despised this place that I meant to let you leave it, and—that scourge of your life—me, madame. But it seems that I have left you lacking, that I have perhaps been overly kind, for you only play the whore.”
She tried to slap him. No, she tried to scratch his face. Then she tried to lift her knee and kick him, but he slammed his weight down hard upon her, and she cried out.
“Poor, innocent, demoiselle!”
“Savage jackal! Let me up. You fool. You—”
He ground his lips down upon hers. They punished and bruised. She fought him, and still the taste of her lips was wet and sweet and more potent than wine. He delved deeper and deeper into the dark recesses of her mouth. It had been too long since he had kissed her so. The memories reborn of the taste and feel and scent of her were so enticing that he shook with it. She twisted from him, trying to shove him aside. Her eyes were wild, and her hair was a halo about her, spilling over the pines. Her lips were damp and parted and bewitching. Her face was beautiful, beguiling, and filled with pride and hatred and the spirit of her fight.
“You fool! You will not do this on the ground in the dirt—”
“Nay, lady, you will not deny me, not today. Not this morning. Tomorrow you may do as you please. For today, madame, you have swished your tail one too many times in my direction, and I will have what I want. Nay, lady, what I demand!”
He forced his lips upon her again and caught her hands against the pines, palm to palm. He laced his fingers with her struggling ones and felt the pressure she wielded against him. He ignored it. He kissed her, drinking her in, tasting and seeking, and … gentle now. There was no more brutality to his kiss. She was open to him.
Her fingers curled against his.
He lifted some of his weight and removed his hand from hers. He pulled at the ribbons of her bodice, and then at her chemise, watching her eyes. She did not fight him but stared directly at him. He had no patience. The thunder rose painfully in his groin, driven by the weeks of waiting, and the nights of longing, and the anguished moments when he thought about her in the arms of another man.
He cast back his head and let out a loud groan. He buried his face against the spill of her breasts and thought of his son. He pressed his mouth to her flesh and felt her shudder. He would have pulled away, but she let out a soft, choking sigh, and when he released her hands, she held him there, against her. He tasted her as Daniel would taste her, and he filled himself with the feel and texture of her breasts, the thunder pounding ever more fiercely. He caught her skirts, pushed them up against her, and released the ties on his breeches. She still looked at him, her sapphire eyes glimmering in the green darkness. He touched her thighs and eased the stroke of his fingers against them. And still she looked at him with her luminous eyes and her beautiful face, defying him.
He nearly rammed into her but in time remembered that their child had not been born so long ago. He moved gently … but she spoke no protest, and he cast back his head, encased and shuddering, and groaned out the anguish in his heart and in his loins. She seemed to burst forth with a mercury, arching against him. He forgot everything else but the force of his desire, and he felt the thunder burst free from him, tear across the heavens and the earth, the blue sky and the verdant pines, and into her.
He cried out, and the sound of her voice rose with his own. The end came to him explosively, fiercely. He arched hard and held, and then fell upon the earth beside her, drained of his lust and his temper all in one, and suddenly, uncomfortably ashamed. He had raped his wife in the forest, upon the pines.
She was silent beside him, breathing hard, staring now at the sky. She made no attempt to adjust her clothing but lay so still that it frightened him.
“Jassy!”
She turned to look at him. There was a soft glaze of tears in her eyes. He swore, furious with himself. Pulling down her skirts, he rose, desperate to be away from her.
“Damn you!” he whispered, his voice shaking. He turned away from the striking and terrible innocence in her crystal-blue eyes, adjusting his breeches. He wanted to explain that she had pushed him to the limit, that no man could watch his wife with other men so long without going over some brink and landing his soul in a pool of dragons. He wanted to say so many things to her. He wanted to say that she had bested him in every way, that he loved her beyond measure. It would sound so very hollow now.…
He leapt to his feet. He did not help her up; he did not think that she was ready to rise.
“I’ll leave you the horse,” he said huskily. “When the Lady Destiny sails, I will give you my leave to take Daniel with you to England too.”
“Jamie—” she began.
“I will not force you to stay, madame.” He hesitated briefly. “Good day, milady. I am heartily sorry for my bad manners.”
He left her, disappearing into the woods.
Jassy lay there, feeling the prick of the pines beneath her, for a long time. She listened to the ripple of the brook and felt the sun touch her cheeks through the trees. She brought her fingers to her face and discovered that her face was damp with her silent tears. How could she have failed so miserably?
She realized numbly that he had given her Daniel. He didn’t even care if he kept their child anymore, he just wanted her to leave.
She closed her eyes, cast her elbow over them, and swallowed hard. He couldn’t have ceased to want her so completely; he could not hate her so vehemently. She had wanted him so badly; she loved him. Loving was worse than the pain of hunger; it was worse than the fear of poverty. It was more painful than anything she had ever known.
She would not go. She had to talk to him. She had to make him stand still and listen to her. If she told him that she loved Virginia, that she loved the forest, primeval and so rich and dark, and the river and the Chesapeake Bay and the oysters that they pulled out of it. She loved the palisade, and the way of life, and she never had wanted to return to England. Even if he did not love her, he had to let her stay. She wouldn’t go. She simply wouldn’t do so.
Slowly, painfully, she came to her feet. She adjusted her clothing and tried to smooth down her hair and rid it of the forest floor. He had left her the horse, and he had gone off on foot—where, she did not know.
Wearily she looped her skirts together, took a handful of the horse’s mane, and leapt onto the animal. At a very slow pace she started back toward the palisade. She was young and she was strong, and whatever came, she vowed silently to herself, she would survive. But she could not give up on her husband so easily. She could not.
When she broke slowly from the verdant foliage of the forest, she saw the palisade rising before her in the sunlight. No, it was not London, it was not Oxford, it was not even the Crossroads Inn. No grand Gothic or Renaissance buildings rose in mighty splendor against the coming of the morning. Yet what stood there was finer in its way, for what it was, was what men had built from a raw wilderness, and it was composed of blood and sweat and dreams of the future. The palisade was strong, and beyond it lay the church and her house and the potter’s kilns and the blacksmith’s shop and the homes of them all.
The gates of the palisade were open, welcoming visitors on the holy day. By the outer wall, one of the young farmers was cutting wood. A Pamunkee Indian was at his side, stacking the logs as the farmer cut them.
Then, suddenly, the Pamunkee snatched the ax from the young farmer and sank the sharp-bladed instrument right into the man’s skull.
Jassy opened her mouth in horror, but her astonishment caused her to choke on her cry. Shocked, she reined in on the horse, disbelieving what she had seen with her own eyes.
The farmer clutched his head, fell to his knees, then fell flat, the ax still imbedded in his head. The Pamunkee calmly stepped over him to retrieve the ax, and looked toward the open palisade.
Jassy’s limbs seemed to freeze, inch by inch. The cold and
numbness overcame her, then struck pure icy terror into the very center of her heart.
“No!” At last her scream tore from her, and Jassy kicked the horse hard into a gallop, her mind racing. It was not just the horror of the murder she had witnessed. It had been the way in which it had taken place. The Pamunkee had stood with the farmer as his friend. They had been laughing, and then the Indian had grabbed the weapon and slain the man … then retrieved the weapon and looked toward the palisade.
How many of the Pamunkees were already inside the gates? They had been coming all morning—in friendship. Was it an isolated incident? Had the Indian gone mad?
Earth churned and flew as Jassy sped toward the gates. The Indian who had accomplished the murder was just nearing the palisade. He swung around, the ax in his hand dripping blood, and stared at her.
“Help! Sound the alarm!” she screamed. The blade looked lethal. She tried not to stare down at the dead body of the farmer. She urged the skittish horse around the body and kept her eyes upon the Indian. “Sound the alarm!” she screamed, hoping someone would hear her.
From somewhere deep within the compound came the sound of a scream. She and the Indian stared at each other warily. Jassy jammed her heels into the horse’s flanks, and the animal reared, then bolted past the Pamunkee. She heard the sound of another scream, then she saw one of the soldiers come out of the guardhouse. He was wearing his helmet and his half-armor. He wore a look of wide-eyed shock as he stumbled out before Jassy, clutching his stomach. She realized that he held the shaft of a knife there. He had been skewered with his own weapon.
Jassy screamed herself. Another of the guards came out of the little house. “The alarm!” she shouted.