“All right, James.”
He pulled her on top of him, jerked her nightgown over her head, and said, “Bring me inside you, Jessie. That’s right, slowly, slowly.”
It was nearly nine o’clock, his wife had struck her head not all that many hours before, and here she was riding him—slowly, to be sure—but she was moving on him, and she looked to be enjoying herself. He stroked her breasts, let his hands tighten about her waist, then lower until he found her and he stroked her until she was breathing hard, pulling him deep inside her, teasing him, and he said very clearly, “Jessie, it’s time for you to climax now, all right?”
“Now?”
“Yes, now.”
“Yes,” she said. “All right.” She looked amazed as she flung her head back, all that wild red hair of hers streaming over her shoulders and down her back, and surely throwing her head like that had to hurt her just a bit but all he could see was her pleasure, shimmering over her, making her cry out, making her ride him hard and harder yet and just as she was easing, he took his own release.
She was lying over him, her warm breath against his neck, and he was still inside her.
“You were ill,” he managed when he could finally put two words together.
“Yes, but I’m much better now.”
“I’d say you were the best. That was incredible, Jessie.”
“Yes,” she said, licked his neck, and snuggled back down. In a moment, she was asleep and he was still inside her.
He lay there a long time, his hands rubbing her back, stroking her, kneading her buttocks.
The old Jessie, the new Jessie, it didn’t matter. She was his Jessie.
He didn’t know when he fell asleep, but it seemed as if it were only three seconds later when he was jerked awake by a loud scream.
Dear God, had Laura gotten back into the house?
It was Jessie, thrashing around, her arms and legs flailing, screaming, then screaming again, sobs wheezing out between the screams, deep ugly sounds that scared the devil out of him.
She’d slipped off him. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her until she stilled. “Jessie,” he said, kissed her, then shook her once again.
She opened her eyes, stared up at him, and screamed again.
“No, no, it’s just me, James. It’s all right.”
“James,” she said. Oh God, he thought, she spoke in that child’s high singsong voice. He felt the hair stir on the back of his neck. That child’s voice said, “I don’t know a James. Who are you? Why are you here?”
“I’m taking care of you. You had a bad fall and hit your head.”
“Oh, are you a doctor?”
“Perhaps that is what I am now.” Didn’t she know him? Had the child come into her and planned to stay?
“Dr. James. That sounds strange to me.”
“Can you tell me what you were dreaming?” He tried to speak calmly, his voice as soothing as a father’s to his child when the child is afraid and confused.
Suddenly, Jessie jerked away from him. She struck his chest and scratched his cheek before he pinned her arms to her sides. There was terror in her eyes, wild terror she couldn’t seem to escape. “No, no,” she said it again and yet again. “Let me go! Don’t do that, it’s horrible, stop, stop.” It was that pathetic child’s voice and it terrified him, hearing it come from a woman’s mouth.
His eyes had become used to the darkness. He saw shadows now, saw more clearly the terror in her eyes. He said slowly, “Something happened to you, Jessie. Something to do with this Mr. Tom?”
She was straining away from him, looking at him as if she was waiting for him to hurt her, that, or kill her. He released her hands. She crossed her arms over her head to protect herself, lurched to the very edge of the bed, her legs drawing close to her chest, huddling down, trying to hide.
“It’s all right,” he said quietly, in that same soothing voice he didn’t even know he had, knowing he was dealing with the child, not the woman. “You will be fine. Go to sleep now. I’ll watch over you. I won’t leave you. Sleep.”
She fell asleep sobbing, her fist stuffed in her mouth. He was afraid to touch her. He was afraid to awaken her. He wondered if he did awaken her whether she would be herself or that terrified child again.
He waited until she was sleeping deeply, then drew her against him, nestling her into the curve of his body. She had no more nightmares that night, at least ones that drew her back to childhood and to terror. It occurred to him that she’d had this damned dream each time they’d made love. No, not the first two times when she hadn’t enjoyed herself, but every time thereafter. They’d made love and then she’d had this horrible dream. Triggered by pleasure? He didn’t like that one bit.
When Jessie awoke the following morning, a dark morning with rain slashing against the windowpanes, the wind slashing the oak branches against the side of the house, she opened her eyes and saw James sitting beside her not looking at all like an angel. He looked like a very worried man. But Jessie’s thoughts were elsewhere. For once her nightmares had pierced through to memory. She sat straight up in bed, turned to her husband, and said, “James, Mr. Tom was a very bad man. But it’s not only about him. It’s about Blackbeard. It’s all about the pirate Blackbeard.”
25
THE EARL OF Chase said to his valet, who was regarding a sleeping Charles with a beneficent eye, “Spears, what do you make of all this Blackbeard nonsense? George Raven had precious little to offer about any of it, not that he knew much, but the fellow has no imagination at all, just rambled on and on about that wicked fellow Blackbeard, and how it all had come back to Jessie after ten years.”
Spears cleared his throat and said in his deep voice, “The pirate Blackbeard, as he devised himself, was really named Edward Teach. He would appear to be in the forefront of this situation, evidently. If you know what I mean.”
“I don’t, but that’s never stopped you before. Proceed, Spears.”
“Yes, my lord. I spoke more closely with Dr. Raven. It would seem that Jessie hasn’t had a vision. It seems she’s remembered horrific details from her past—details that as a young girl she’d refused to remember. She hasn’t revealed the details to anyone but James. Evidently while still a girl she fell ill right after this horrific experience, then awoke, remembering nothing of it. Mr. Badger agrees with me. He believes that a child will simply forget in order to survive. Miss Maggie disagrees. She believes Jessie’s childhood fever acted like a blow to the head, causing her to forget. This new blow on the head, Miss Maggie believes, brought the memory back to life.”
“What does Sampson think?” the Duchess asked, laying down the small exquisitely stitched shirt that, her husband had told her, would be ruined by Charles’s drool within an hour of dressing him in it.
“Mr. Sampson, when applied to for his opinion, said that he believed none of it mattered, that what was important was that Miss Jessie tell us more about this Blackbeard fellow and why he’s so damned important and what he has to do with this horrific incident from her childhood. Mr. Sampson, as you know, my lord, usually disregards any outward trappings and cuts directly to the chase.”
The Duchess didn’t so much as turn a hair when Esmee, the cat, jumped onto her lap, curled up in the middle of her sewing, and began to wash herself.
She calmly patted Esmee, who began to purr so loudly that Charles jerked awake, looked up at his papa then at Spears, and yelled.
“I believe the young master is ready for his midafternoon repast,” Spears said.
“He’s a bloody little stoat,” Marcus said. “Duchess, I’ll hold that blasted Esmee if you would like to see to him.”
“There is no choice,” the Duchess said as she rose. “The American Wyndhams will arrive shortly, Spears. Then all our questions will be answered.” To her husband, she added, “My dear, I fear that Esmee does not intend to lie quietly while you pat her.”
Marcus, the cat now on his lap, was staring down at her while she kneaded his
thighs.
“A cat and a wife,” he remarked to the room at large, as he rubbed Esmee’s chin, “most of the time I can’t tell her scratches apart from the damned cat’s.”
“And you, my dear,” the Duchess said calmly to her husband as she leaned down to pick up her yelling son, “many times aren’t able to perceive when you are very close to the edge.”
Marcus burst out laughing, dislodging Esmee, who stood up on his legs, dug deeply, then bounded off. “I’ll get you yet, Duchess,” he said. “All I ask is that you lose that god-awful serene facade just once a week. Only one episode a week will satisfy me.”
“The Duchess, my lord,” Spears said, standing very straight and very stiff, eyeing his seated master, who was grinning like a glutton in a room filled with sweetmeats, “will now give suckle to your son. Then—”
“‘Suckle,’ Spears? Good God, that sounds biblical.”
“I doubt, Marcus,” the Duchess said as she swung Charles into her arms, “that you would appreciate a biblical reference were it to float into the space before your nose.”
“Spears,” Marcus said, “you’re looking so puffed up with ire you look ready to explode. When will you ever realize that the Duchess has no need at all of your protection? Go away. Leave me in peace with this blasted cat.”
The Duchess, laughing as she cuddled her son to her chest, left the drawing room, Spears, still high in his dignity, at her heels.
Badger handed a delicate Se`vres dish to Jessie. She looked at it, and her mouth began to water. “Your scones, Badger, with clotted cream. Oh dear, this is wonderful. If my head even considered hurting me, it would surely stop now.”
“The scones are known for their restorative effect,” Badger said, gave Jessie a close look, nodded, then turned to serve everyone else. The Duchess dispensed tea. James looked over at Maggie, gowned this afternoon in a soft peach affair, really quite demure for Maggie, that made her look as delicious as Badger’s clotted cream. Sampson stood behind her, his left hand laying lightly on her shoulder. Every once in a while, Maggie patted her husband’s hand.
“Actually,” Jessie said, giving a demure look to her husband, “James is more effective as a cure than a scone could ever be. Forgive me, Badger, but it’s true.”
James choked. Sampson thumped him on the back.
“We won’t wish to hear more of this,” Spears said, but he wasn’t frowning.
Jessie looked like an exotic flower next to Maggie today—surely a reversal—her red hair unconfined, because braiding it had given her a headache. It was full and wild around her face, a face that was still on the pale side, and that had worried him, but she’d begged and begged to ride with him to Chase Park, before she became as inert as one of her goose-feather pillows, she’d told him.
“Now that everyone is fortified for the upcoming disclo-sures,” Marcus said as he ate the last bite of his scone, “it’s time we know more about this Blackbeard fellow, Jessie. You didn’t tell poor George a thing. The Duchess bullied him mercilessly, but still he wasn’t at all forthcoming.”
“His lordship is quite right,” Spears said in his ducal manner, as distinguished as one of the royals, probably more so. “Dr. Raven is a fine physician, but he has no imagination.”
The earl grunted.
Spears gently cleared his throat. “He doesn’t inquire properly into matters. Now, Jessie, tell us everything.”
Jessie looked around at all the people who had taken her in and been kind to her and guided her and held her close and had actually liked her and wanted her to be happy. It was just too much. She couldn’t help it, she burst into tears.
“Jessie!”
James, utterly appalled, scared to his toes actually that she was unable to face this childhood terror—whatever it was—was on his feet in an instant. He sat beside her, which was difficult since it was not all that large a chair, and pulled her against him. “Shush, sweetheart, it’s all right. It’s your head, nothing more, and all those dreadful memories. You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.”
“Jessie,” Badger said, “needs a brandy. Mr. Sampson, would you care to pour her a goodly dose? It will clear an open path to her belly and warm her.”
James took the snifter of his lordship’s finest brandy from Sampson’s outstretched hand and nudged it against Jessie’s cheek. “Come now, drink it down. If Badger says you need it to open up your belly, then you need it.”
She took too big a drink, thought her stomach would burn to a cinder, coughed until her face was as red as her hair, and wheezed out, “Oh my goodness, Badger, that is dangerous. How do gentlemen drink such quantities of it and survive to drink even more?”
“Gentlemen,” Spears said, eyeing the earl briefly, “have remarkable adaptive powers. It aids them to survive when their brains don’t function properly. Take just another very small sip, Jessie.”
She did, felt the warmth fill her, and sighed.
“Do you feel up to telling everyone about that long-ago summer now?”
She nodded, looking suddenly embarrassed. “I was just a little girl, not more than ten years old if I remember correctly. My family has a house on Ocracoke, an island on a skinny strand of land off the coast of North Carolina that’s called the Outer Banks or the barrier islands since it protects the mainland coast from Atlantic storms. It’s a beautiful place in the summer, quite sunny, with long wide beaches, the water still cool but you can swim if you’re brave. There are wild horses roaming all up and down the Outer Banks that many people believe swam to shore from a sinking Spanish galleon sometime in the sixteenth century. People who live there have tamed some of them.
“In the summer of 1812, I was always spending my days at the beach, digging around for clams, swimming until my skin was puckered and my mother threatened to tie me to my bed. There was this man who was living in this shack right on the beach. Everyone called him Old Tom. I called him Mr. Tom. I don’t know now if he was really all that old, but since I was very young he looked ancient enough to be practically dead.”
“That’s all very well, Jessie”—Anthony’s voice came from behind the pianoforte in the corner of the drawing room—“but what about Blackbeard?”
“Anthony,” his mother said in her calm, serene voice, “you will go to your father and he will gently place his hand over your mouth. You won’t interrupt Jessie again, all right?”
“Papa’s hand is very big, Mama.”
“He’ll be careful not to cover your nose as well so you won’t suffocate. You will be careful, won’t you, Marcus?”
“I didn’t drown him, did I, and there was much more provocation.”
Anthony went to stand beside his father and stared toward Jessie expectantly.
“Well, Anthony, it turned out that Old Tom was Blackbeard’s great-grandson. Blackbeard was an evil man, Old Tom told me over and over again, for he was very proud of Blackbeard. Aye, Old Tom would say, he was the most infamous, cruel, and ruthless of all the pirates. He robbed and murdered and terrorized everyone in the Caribbean and all the towns and cities unfortunate enough to have been founded on rivers or on the ocean.”
“I wonder if this is true, Jessie,” Spears said. “We offered the blighter a pardon?”
“Yes, apparently so; way back in 1718, Blackbeard signed a paper renouncing pirate-hood and moved to Ocracoke. There used to be a ruined castle there in the village called Blackbeard’s Castle, so it’s said. Now, though, there are just some rocks lying around. So, was there really a castle? I don’t know. There’s also Teach’s Hole, a channel that lies very close to the village. For years, this was where Blackbeard brought his ships to careen.”
“Jessie, what does ‘careen’ mean?”
Maggie said, “Master Anthony, when you careen a ship, you pull it up on shore and lay it on its side so you can make repairs and clean it off and whatever else it needs.”
Sampson gave his wife a surprised look. “However did you know that, my dear?”
&nbs
p; Her eyes twinkled as she said in a voice as demure as a nun’s, “There was this sailor I met just before I saved Mr. Badger’s life in Plymouth. He, uh, told me ever so many things about ships and such.”
“I suspected as much,” Sampson said. “My wife,” he announced to the group, “has unplumbed depths.”
“Yuck,” Anthony said, watching Sampson lean down and kiss Maggie’s hand. “Tell us more interesting things, Jessie.”
“All right. After he signed the paper, he lived in his castle for a while, drank up all his rum, tormented his men, but soon even that got to be old hat. He got so bored that he slipped back into his evil ways. There were very few people living on Ocracoke at that time, only a few pilots, and he tormented them as well.
“Finally, the British went after him and a Lt. Maynard caught up with him. It’s said that he fought madly for over three hours. He was stabbed twenty times, one slash nearly cutting his throat. He was shot five times and still he fought, until he simply had no more blood in him. Pardon me, Anthony. They cut off his head and hung it from the bowsprit.”
Spears cleared his throat. “Mr. Daniel Defoe wrote that his body was thrown overboard and that ‘the Headless Corpse swam around the sloop Three Times in Defiance before it sank into the sea.”’
“Did he eat people, Jessie?”
“I don’t think so, Anthony, but he did cut quite a few gullets. There’s one story you’ll like. It seems that their ship, Queen Anne’s Revenge, was becalmed, everyone was bored, there were no ships in sight to plunder and destroy, and Blackbeard, drunk on rum, shouted, ‘Come, let us make a Hell of our own, and try how long we can bear it!’ They sat on the stones used to ballast the ship. Pots of brimstone—sulfur—were brought down and then the hatches were closed. Blackbeard outlasted the other men. One of his men shouted to him that he looked as if he were coming right from the gallows, to which Blackbeard is said to have roared that the next time they would play at gallows and see who could swing longest on the string without being throttled.”