It was dark outside, and the wind from the sea moved the tree branches overhead. As she paused on the doorstep, she lifted her chin high. She would make it; no matter what it took from her, she’d show them that she wasn’t an ineffectual person, as they seemed to believe. The stones were cold under her feet as she walked away from the house, refusing to think about the fact that she was in public—however dark—wearing only her nightgown. Someday, she thought, she’d return to this house wearing a satin gown and tall feathers in her hair, and Farrell would go down on his knees to her, saying that she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Of course, by then she’d be renowned for her brilliant house parties, a favorite of the king and queen; she’d be celebrated for her wit and intelligence as well as her beauty.
The cold was becoming so intense that it was overriding her dreams. Stopping by an iron fence, she began to rub her arms. Where was she? She remembered Farrell saying she’d been kept a prisoner, and it was true. Since she was two years old she had rarely ever left Weston Manor. A succession of maids and frightened governesses had been her only companions, the garden her only place of amusement. In spite of being alone, she rarely felt lonely. That feeling didn’t come until she met Farrell.
Leaning against the cold iron, she put her face in her hands. Whom was she trying to fool? What could she do alone in the night wearing only her nightgown?
She lifted her head when she heard footsteps coming toward her. A brilliant smile lit her face; Farrell was coming after her! As she moved away from the fence, her sleeve caught in the iron and tore at the shoulder. Ignoring the tear, she began to run toward the footsteps.
“Here, girly,” said a poorly dressed young man. “So, you came to greet me, all ready for bed.”
Backing away from him, Regan tripped over the edge of her long gown.
“There’s no need to be afraid of Charlie,” the man said. “I don’t want nothin’ that you don’t want.”
Regan began to run in earnest, her heart pounding wildly, her sleeve tearing a bit more with each movement. She had no idea where she was going, whether she was running toward something or away from it. Even when she fell the first time, she hardly slowed her pace.
It seemed like hours before she slipped into an alleyway and allowed her heart to calm enough to listen for the man’s footsteps. When everything seemed to be quiet, she leaned her head back against the damp brick wall and smelled the salty, fishy odor from the sea. She could hear laughter from somewhere to her right, a door slammed, there was some metal clanking, and she could hear the call of the seagulls.
As she looked down at her nightgown, she saw it was torn and muddy; there was mud in her hair and, she guessed, on her cheek. Trying not to think about how she looked, she wanted only to control her fear. She had to get away from this bad-smelling place and find shelter before morning—a place where she could rest and find safety.
Trying as best she could to smooth her hair, pulling the torn pieces of her gown together, she left the alleyway and started walking toward the place where she’d heard the laughter. Perhaps there she would find the help she needed.
Within minutes, a man tried to grab her arm. As she jerked away from him, two more clutched at her skirt; the fabric tore in three places.
“No,” she whispered, backing away from them. The smell of the fish seemed to be overpowering, and the darkness was as heavy as velvet. Again she started to run, the men following her closely.
As she looked back, she saw that there were several men behind her—just following her, not really hurrying, seeming to tease her with their pursuit.
One moment she was running, and the next she felt as if she’d slammed into a stone wall. She hit the ground, landing on her seat as if she’d been dropped from a window.
“Travis,” a man above her said. “I think you’ve knocked the wind out of her sails.”
An enormous shadow bent over Regan, and a rich, deep voice asked, “Are you hurt?”
Before she could think, she was swept from the ground and held in strong, safe-feeling arms. She was too exhausted, too terrified to consider proprieties but hid her face in the deep shoulder of the man who held her.
“I think you got just what you wanted for the night,” another man chuckled. “Shall we see you in the morning?”
“Perhaps,” said the deep voice against Regan’s cheek. “But I may not come out until the ship sails.”
The men laughed again before continuing on their way.
Chapter 2
REGAN HAD NO IDEA WHERE SHE WAS OR WHOM SHE WAS with; all she knew was that she felt safe, as if she’d awakened from a terrible nightmare. As she closed her eyes and let her body sink against the man who held her so easily, she felt as if everything was going to be all right. A burst of light made her close her eyes more tightly, and bury her face more deeply into the hard shoulder.
“Whatcha got there, Mr. Travis?” came a woman’s voice.
Regan felt a deep chuckle run through the man. “Bring some brandy and hot water to my room—and some soap.”
The man seemed to have no trouble climbing the stairs with the extra weight of Regan in his arms. By the time he lit a candle, she was nearly asleep.
Gently he set her on the bed, her back propped against pillows. “All right, let’s have a look at you.”
While he seemed to inspect her, Regan got her first look at her rescuer. An extraordinarily thick crop of soft, dark hair topped a handsome face with deep brown eyes and a finely shaped mouth. There were little sparks of laughter in his eyes, tiny lines at the corners.
“Satisfied?” he asked as he went to answer the knock at the door.
He had to be the largest man she’d ever seen—a totally unfashionable figure, of course, but at the same time fascinating. The depth of his chest was probably twice the circumference of any part of her body. No doubt his arms were as big as her waist, and she could see that his snug buckskin trousers clung to massive muscles in his thighs. Tall boots reached to his knees, and she wondered at them because she’d only seen men in silk hose and little kid slippers.
“Here, I want you to drink this; it’ll make you feel better.”
When the brandy was too hot in her throat, the man urged her to sip it slowly.
“You’re cold as ice, and the brandy will warm you.”
The brandy did warm her, and the golden candlelit room, and the man’s quiet power all reinforced her feeling of security. Her uncle and Farrell seemed far away. “Why do you talk so strangely?” she asked softly.
His eyes crinkled further. “I might ask you the same thing. I’m an American.”
Her eyes widened in a mixture of interest and some fear. She’d heard many stories about the Americans—men who declared war on their mother country, men who were little more than savages.
As if he had read her thoughts, the man dipped a cloth into the hot water, rubbed it on the soap, and began to wash Regan’s face. Somehow it seemed so natural that this man, whose palm was as big as her face, should gently and tenderly wash her. When he’d finished her face, he began on her feet and legs. She looked down at his hair, cut just above his collar, curling a bit, and she couldn’t resist touching it. It was firm and clean, and she thought that even the hairs on his head were strong.
As he rose, he took her hand and kissed her fingertips. “Put this on,” he said, tossing her one of his clean shirts. “I’ll go downstairs and see if I can find us something to eat. You look like you could use a good meal.”
The room seemed cavernous when he was gone. When Regan stood, she weaved a bit and realized the brandy had gone to her head. Her Uncle Jonathan had never allowed her to drink spirits. The thought of that name brought back all the ugly memories. As she pulled off what was left of the torn and soiled nightgown, she began to imagine how Farrell and her uncle would feel when she returned with a big, handsome American on her arm. The Colonial was big enough to enforce anything he wanted. As she climbed into bed, wrapped in his clean shirt,
the tails past her knees, she imagined how she’d be reinstated in Weston Manor, this time in glory. And the American would always be her friend, would even attend her wedding to Farrell. Of course, he would have to learn some manners, but perhaps Farrell could teach him.
She drifted off to sleep, a smile on her lips.
Travis returned to the room with a tray heavily laden with food. When his efforts to wake Regan only made her snuggle deeper under the covers, he dug into the food alone. He’d been drinking with his friends from America since early afternoon, celebrating their safe voyage and the completion of Travis’s business in England. In a week he’d be sailing for Virginia.
All four of the men had been saying they’d like a sweet girl in their bed when this one ran into Travis. She was pretty, young, and clean, in spite of the pound of dirt he’d washed from her. He wondered what she was doing alone at night, running through the streets in her torn nightgown. Perhaps she’d been kicked out of the house where she usually worked, or maybe she wanted to try it on her own and found that working the streets frightened her.
Having finished most of the food, Travis stood and stretched. Whatever the girl’s problem, at least she was his tonight. Tomorrow he could return her to the streets.
He undressed slowly, his hands clumsy with the buttons. The way the girl had clung to him had excited him, and he wondered where she’d learned such a trick; no other whore he’d met had used that technique.
When he was naked, he slipped between the sheets and pulled the girl to him. Her body was limp, but as he slipped his hands beneath the shirt she began to awaken.
Regan felt the warm, masculine hands on her body, and it seemed to be part of her delicious dream. No one had offered her affection before; even as a child, when she’d longed to be held by someone, there was no one there to offer her love. In the back of her mind was the memory of some recent, horrible hurt, and she wanted someone to cling to, someone to take away the pain.
In a half-daze between sleep and wakefulness, she felt her shirt being removed. When her breasts touched his chest and felt the hardness of it, the coating of hair, she gasped with delight. Lips kissed her cheek, her eyes, her hair, and finally her mouth. She’d never kissed a man before, but she knew instantly that she liked it very much. His firm-soft lips moved over hers, parting them just a bit, savoring the sweetness of them.
As he pulled her closer to him, her arms went around his neck, glorying in the size of him, and she moved closer, pushing her body next to his, wanting to touch all of him.
But as Travis’s movements grew quicker, she opened her eyes in surprise. Her senses began to return rapidly, and she started to pull away from him. Yet Travis’s strength was such that he didn’t notice her weak efforts to push him away. His head was none too clear from the whiskey he’d consumed, and the girl’s eager response had inflamed him.
Regan pushed harder, but Travis’s arms only tightened as his lips swept down on hers, sealing off any negative response she might make. In spite of her growing awareness that what she was doing was wrong, she couldn’t resist for long, and so she started to respond to him fully, arching against him, wanting from him she knew not what.
Travis’s hand held her head, cradling it, caressing it, his thumb running along the back of her ear. His teeth nipped her earlobe. “Sweet,” he whispered. “As sweet as a violet.”
Smiling, Regan moved languorously as Travis’s thigh came across hers. She moved her head to one side, allowing him access to all her throat and shoulder. She felt she might dissolve into a pool of liquid when he began to make love to her collarbone. Running her hands through his hair, losing them in the thick mass, she held his head down, didn’t want him to move. When his hand first touched her breast, her body went rigid with surprise. Then, as the exquisite feeling flowed through every pore and vessel of her body, she pulled his head back to hers. Eagerly, passionately, thirstily, she sought his lips.
When he moved on top of her, her first thought was that for a man so big he was extraordinarily light. The next instant she felt pain, and her eyes flew open, her body lost its feeling of pleasure, and she pushed at him with all her might.
But Travis was past hearing her. His desire for this ardent, willing bit of heaven was raging, towering, and he could not listen to her protests.
Fuzzy from drink or not, he knew what he felt when he hit the tiny membrane. Somewhere in the back of his mind a bit of sanity told him that he was making an error, but he could not stop. He thrust into her quickly, much of his original zeal gone.
When he was finished he lay still on top of her, feeling her small, delicately boned body begin to shake with sobs. Her hot tears wet his neck, mingling with the sweat on his body.
As he rolled away from her, he didn’t look at her. The sun was beginning to come in through the window, and Travis had never felt so sober in his life. When he had put on his pants and boots, and then his shirt, which he didn’t bother to button, he turned back to her. Only the top of her head showed above the cover.
As gently as he could, he eased himself down onto the bed to sit beside her. “Who are you?” he asked quietly. A shake of her head and a loud sob were all the answer he got. Taking a deep breath, he pulled her upright, keeping the sheet around her bare breasts.
“Don’t touch me!” she hissed. “You hurt me!”
Wincing once, Travis frowned. “I know I did, and I’m sorry, but….” His voice got louder. “Damn it! How was I to know you were a virgin? I thought you were….” He stopped because he could see the innocence in her eyes. How could he have thought she was a prostitute? Maybe it had been the mud or the poorly lit room last night, or more likely the whiskey he’d drunk, but today he could see that he should have known her for what she obviously was. Even sitting naked in his bed, her hair a tangle about her shoulders, she exuded an air of refinement and gentility that only the upperclass English could keep in times of stress. As it began to dawn on him what he’d done—taken some lord’s virgin daughter to his bed—he started to realize the seriousness of his actions.
“I don’t guess I can apologize for what’s happened,” he began, “but perhaps I can explain myself to your father. I’m sure that he’ll….” Understand? Travis thought.
“My father is dead,” Regan said.
“Then I’ll take you to your guardian.”
“No!” Regan blurted. How could she return to her uncle like this, with this great American confessing what they’d done together? “If you would get me something to wear, I will leave you. You needn’t bother about taking me anywhere.”
Travis seemed to consider this for a moment. “Why were you running around the docks in the middle of the night? Unless I miss my guess, a child like you”—he smiled at her look—“pardon me, a young lady like you has probably never even seen the docks before.”
Regan tilted her chin upward. “What I have or have not seen is no concern of yours. All I ask of you is a dress, something simple if you can afford it, and I will leave immediately.”
Again Travis smiled. “I can probably manage a dress. But I’ll not release you into that pack of animals out there. You know what happened to you last night.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “And what worse could happen to me than what you did last night?” She buried her face in her hands. “Who would want me now? You’ve ruined me.”
Sitting beside her, Travis pulled her hands away. “Any man would want you, sweetheart. You’re the most delightful bit—.” He cut himself off.
Regan wasn’t sure she knew what he meant, but she had an idea. “Why, you vulgar Colonial! You are as savage as I’ve heard. You pull ladies off the street and drag them to your room where you do”—she sputtered—“horrible things to them.”
“Now wait just a minute! If I remember correctly, you came flying at me from out of the dark last night, and when I tried to help you up, you practically leaped into my arms. That’s not the action of anyone I’d consider a lady. And as for last night,
you didn’t think what I did was so horrible when you were pulling my hair and running your feet up and down my legs.”
Dropping her jaw in sheer horror at his words, Regan could only blink at him.
“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say anything to shock you, but I want you to get your facts straight. Had I known you were a virgin and not a street girl, I wouldn’t have touched you. But we can’t change the facts. I did touch you, and now you’re my responsibility.”
“I…most certainly am not your responsibility. I assure you I can take care of myself.”
“Like you did last night?” he asked, lifting one eyebrow. “It’s a good thing you ran into me, or there’s no telling what could have happened to you.”
Moments passed before Regan could speak. “Is there no end to your arrogance or your insufferability? There was nothing good in meeting you, and I now know I was better off on the streets than locked away with a mad, despicable ravisher of women such as you are, sir!”
The corners of Travis’s eyes crinkled as he broke into a dazzling smile. Running his hand through his dark hair, he chuckled, “My, my. I believe I’ve been cursed by an English lady.” As his eyes roamed over her bare shoulders, he smiled at her. “You know, I rather think I like you.”
“But I do not care for you,” Regan said, exasperated at his ignorance and lack of understanding.
“Let me introduce myself. I am Travis Stanford from Virginia, and I am pleased to make your acquaintance.” He held out his hand to her.
Crossing her arms over her chest, Regan looked away. Perhaps if she ignored him and was rude to him, he would allow her to go.
“All right,” Travis said, rising. “Have it your way, but we will get something straight between us. I am not going to release you onto the Liverpool docks by yourself. Either you tell me where you live and who takes care of you, or you remain locked in this room.”