“After the trouble I’ve gone to getting you this far?” Griffin asked, and grinned. “Just don’t drop the whiskey.”
Celia didn’t dare breathe as she felt him advance step by step along the felled tree trunk. The rivermen followed them expertly, giving a few more hoots and grunts at the sight of her pale legs silhouetted against the dark green of the bayou.
Jumping from the bridge to the ground, Griffin approached a collection of ramshackle huts in a clearing. “An old Indian camp,” he said as Celia lifted her head and looked around curiously.
“What happened to them?” she asked.
“Driven away a long time ago. Too many traders and smugglers coming from the river.” He lowered her to the ground beside the entrance to a crude hut. “Aug,” he called out. “Step lively. We have only a few minutes.”
“A few minutes?” Celia repeated. “What are you going to do?”
“Get inside.” He pointed to the doorway. “And drink some of that whiskey.”
Her heart began to thump unpleasantly fast. “Why? Why are you calling Aug? Why—”
“Must I repeat myself?” he asked, his tone laced with soft menace.
Blanching, she crept into the hut. A pallet was rotting in the corner. Large holes in the ceiling and a crumbling wall allowed a measure of light and air to filter inside. With trembling hands Celia uncorked the jug and lifted it to her lips. The liquor was vile, the sharp, strong taste of it burning down to her stomach. Seating herself gingerly on a corner of the pallet, she waited. A fat-bellied, furry-legged spider wandered by, and she watched its progress silently.
“I see you have a visitor,” Griffin’s voice came from the tiny doorway, and he ducked his head as he came inside. His booted foot sent the unlucky spider hurtling away. “I’d have expected you to scream.”
Celia was tempted to tell him that at the moment she was far more afraid of two-legged creatures. “There were mice in the hold of Captain Legare’s ship,” she told him.
“Were there?” He knelt in front of her, ripping a ragged length of cloth in two. “Well, better to keep company with mice than service Legare’s crew.”
“Yes, that is true,” she agreed fervently, then inched backward as he reached for her ankle.
“Be still.” Griffin looked at the swollen underside of her foot, realizing how acutely painful it must be. She had not complained once. His gaze moved up to her face, while he felt a twinge of admiration. Given all the terror, grief, and abuse she had suffered during the past two days, and the fact that her husband had just been murdered, she was remarkably self-possessed. Many women would have collapsed under the strain. But it seemed there was iron beneath her vulnerable exterior.
Celia bit her lip as his thumb brushed lightly over her blistered heel. “Poor little girl,” he said, moistening the cloth with a splash of whiskey. His voice was gentle, caressing. She frowned in confusion, for all of a sudden he sounded like Philippe.
“What are you going to—” She yelped in pain as he probed at a sand-encrusted cut. “Ah, mon Dieu,” she gasped, and covered her mouth with her hand to stifle another cry.
“Scream if you like,” he said. “It won’t bother anyone.”
Her foot jerked out of his grasp as he touched the cloth to it again. She felt the pain spear through her body until even her teeth ached. “Please, it is not necessary—”
“You’ll be a hell of an inconvenience if your feet start to fester. Hold still.”
“I c-can’t!” She tried to resist as he grasped her ankle again. Instead of applying the cloth, he searched the back of her heel with his thumb and forefinger. “What are you doing?” she asked in confusion. He pinched deeply into a cluster of nerves until her foot began to feel numb. Slowly she relaxed.
“Better?” he asked.
“Yes, better,” she said with a sigh of relief. Although there was still discomfort, it was not nearly as bad as it had been. Deftly, Griffin continued to clean out the sand and tiny pebbles embedded in the tender sole. “How do you know how to do that?” she asked, giving him her other foot when he gestured for it. He applied the same pressure to the back of it.
“In my far-reaching travels I’ve learned a trick here and there,” Griffin said, and grinned at her. “Later I’ll show you some others.”
“Non, merci, I would rather not…” Her voice trailed into silence as Aug entered the hut carrying a folded cloth sack.
Impassively Aug knelt down beside them, sitting on his heels. He began to pull out a strange assortment of feathers, small stones, lumps of dried clay, bags containing powdered substances.
Griffin held his hand up in a staying gesture. “We don’t have time for charms and fetishes, Aug. Dispense with the voodoo show. All I want is some of the green powder.”
“What is this voodoo?” Celia asked warily.
“Voodoo? It’s magic, medicine, superstition. They practiced it in Haiti, where Aug hails from.”
“What is the green powder?”
“Something we’re going to put on your feet. If, of course, Aug doesn’t insist on some ritual burning of dirt, feathers, and nail cuttings first. Or slaughtering some poor fowl.”
Celia stared at Aug, who was frowning at Griffin’s irreverence. “Does Monsieur Aug worship the devil?” she asked suspiciously. If the answer was yes, she would not allow one particle of green powder near her feet!
Aug replied in the same patois as before, while Celia strained to decipher it.
“Not exactly,” Griffin translated. “But he does believe that the spirits of the dead sometimes return to torment the living.”
“Do you believe so?” Celia asked.
Griffin smiled. “Living people always seem to present more difficulty to me than dead ones.”
Aug reached out to touch her foot, and Celia scuttled back in alarm. For the first time a smile twinkled in his black eyes. He murmured something to Griffin.
Griffin laughed huskily. “Aug wants you to know he has no taste for skinny women. Now let him attend to your feet.”
Solemnly she held still while Aug took her ankle in his broad hand and sprinkled an olive-green substance over her sole. He hummed a soft melody under his breath, winding strips of cloth over and around her foot. Meanwhile, Griffin swabbed his wounded shoulder with whiskey, cursing as the sting of the alcohol sank into the cut.
“Thank you,” Celia murmured to Aug when he had finished bandaging both her feet. She turned her palms up and shrugged helplessly. “I wish…I wish I could repay you somehow.”
Aug pointed to her hair and replied. Celia looked at Griffin questioningly.
“He says he could make some powerful charms if he had a lock of your hair,” Griffin said. He shook his head. “No, Aug.”
Hesitantly Celia reached out to Griffin’s long leg and touched the top of his boot, where she remembered he kept his knife. He arched a winged black eyebrow but made no move to stop her. Her fingertips slid around the solid knife handle and extracted it gently. Trying to comb her hand through her hair, she was dismayed to feel the number of huge snarls and tangles in the golden mass. After she found a small lock near the back, she raised the knife and cut it quickly.
“Here,” she said, handing the glinting skein to Aug, who thanked her with a nod. His blunt fingers moved with surprising delicacy as he wrapped the hair in a scrap of cloth.
“That wasn’t necessary,” Griffin said.
“It was,” Celia replied, watching Aug as he left the hut. She touched one of her neatly wrapped feet. “I owe him a debt for helping me.”
“And you feel obligated to pay your debts?”
“Yes.”
“You owe me your life.”
“Yes.” She met his eyes without blinking.
“I look forward to being reimbursed,” he said mockingly.
Something tightened inside her body, a knot of repulsion and anguish. Her loving husband was dead, and she was the prisoner of this dirty, hairy-faced stranger. He was nothing but a
vagabond, a jackal who survived by stealing from others. For a moment her hatred of him outstripped her fear. She hated his rough beard and sullen-looking mouth, his insolence.
“I think,” she said with every ounce of dignity she possessed, “that your pride would not allow you to force yourself on a woman who did not want you.”
Easily reading her contempt for him, Griffin sneered. “There are many things I value over my pride, petite. Your body happens to be one of them.”
As if a swift storm had appeared over an already choppy sea, his mood switched from unpleasant to cruel. When she timidly asked him where she could see to her private needs, he walked her into the woods where the others could not see them, and he mocked her embarrassment. Although he kept his back turned, Celia was mortified to the point of tears. The sound of her quiet sniffling as she rejoined him seemed to annoy him beyond reason.
“Stop sniveling, you little fool,” he said in exasperation. “God knows why relieving yourself is a matter of such delicacy.”
He snapped at her again when she didn’t move fast enough to suit him. When the hem of the wrinkled black shirt had ridden up her thighs, he inquired sarcastically if she desired to be raped by every member of the crew, beginning with himself. At his bidding, she seated herself in the pirogue, staying as far away from him as possible. After exchanging a few parting words with Aug, Griffin clapped him on the back and boarded the vessel.
Employing oars and long poles, the new crew guided the pirogue along the sluggish bayou. In spite of their earlier insolence, the men quickly became accustomed to Celia’s presence, and they made no overtures to her. She found her attention captured by the exotic scenery: dense foliage and clusters of amethyst irises, muddy water filled with turtles, thick-whiskered muskrat feeding on cattail roots. The insects seemed to plague her more than they did the others, and she slapped at the flies and mosquitoes irritably. By the end of the day, she decided she had never felt so grimy and uncomfortable.
Night brought coolness with it, and Celia began to blink sleepily, wondering if the journey would ever come to an end. The pirogue passed through the last humid stretch of the bayou and through its head, into a wide, cool lake. The light of a full moon glittered over the dark water.
Griffin was faced with a decision as the vessel surged across the rippled surface of the lake. If he pressed on through the night, he would have Celia at the Vallerand plantation in a matter of hours. They could cross the lake, travel by horseback to the Mississippi River, find someone to ferry them across, and make a short trip through the Bayou St. John. Legare was probably at their heels already. It would be best to deliver Celia to the Vallerands quickly, and then disappear into the night.
He looked at Celia. She sat a few feet away from him, huddled in a ball of misery, resting her head and arms in her lap. The disheveled cloud of hair obscured her face. Her neck was streaked with sweat and dirt. The black shirt was pulled closely over her body, but he knew that underneath it were bony knees and hips as slim as a boy’s. Wryly he wondered how she could have inspired such lust earlier.
She sat up and looked straight ahead, clasping her hands in her lap like a prim little girl. Griffin was puzzled by the sight of her. She couldn’t possibly be the same creature who wrapped herself around him like a second skin when he kissed her. Had he imagined the warm silken mouth, the seductive undulation of her body against his…Had he been so exhilarated by a mixture of bloodlust and danger that he had felt a response she hadn’t given?
Celia rested her chin on her hands and closed her eyes. She was about to collapse from exhaustion. Scowling, Griffin decided they would rest for the night. The sleep would do them both good, and a few more hours would make little difference to his plans. As for the debt he had threatened to claim from Celia, he’d said that merely to torment her. She had been correct earlier. He would not force himself on a woman, certainly not one brittle enough to break in two if he touched her. She was in no danger from him.
At Griffin’s command the crew pulled to shore following a route they knew well. Smuggling was their business, and no one was as familiar with the lakes and bayous near New Orleans as they. The pirogue touched ground. Two of the men clambered out to hold the vessel fast while its passengers disembarked. Celia opened her eyes and stared at Griffin blearily. She did not appear to understand his order to leave the vessel. He spoke to her sharply and took her upper arm, dragging her onto the marshy shore. Giving a short nod to the rivermen, he headed into the woods.
“Where are we going?” she asked, stumbling beside him.
“Keep pace with me,” he said curtly.
Celia tried to hold her tongue, but after a minute of walking her resentful words burst forth. “How far must we go? Five miles? Ten? I am not wearing shoes! And you have boots, and long legs, and my feet are…” She fell silent with surprise as he pulled her into a small clearing that held a lean-to house and a paddock and stable.
With no attempt at subterfuge, Griffin strode to the dwelling and banged on the rickety door. “Nettle,” he said gruffly. “Nettle, get out here and saddle a horse.”
There was an apprehensive voice from inside. “Captain? Captain Griffin?”
“Aye, I’ll take Lebrun tonight. Saddle him, and be quick about it.”
A slim, mousy man with a balding head appeared. He looked first at Griffin and then at Celia. He was clearly shocked at the sight of a woman dressed in only a shirt.
“Nettle,” Griffin said abruptly, “do you have another pair of breeches?”
“Of…of…yes, I do, Captain.”
“My companion has need of some additional clothes. And bring food if you have any.”
“Yes, sir.”
Hurriedly Nettle darted into the house, emerged with a small sack, and handed it to Griffin, his gaze averted from Celia. Without a word he rushed to the stable. Griffin handed Celia a pair of worn but clean breeches.
“He works for you?” Celia murmured, yanking on the breeches gratefully.
“In a way.”
“This is his horse you are taking?”
“It’s my own horse,” he said in a voice that forbade further questions.
In a remarkably short time Nettle led a magnificent chestnut horse with a white forehead over to them. The large horse, at least sixteen hands high, seemed nothing but a bundle of nervous energy.
“I’ll return tomorrow,” Griffin said to Nettle.
“Yes, sir.”
Griffin took the horse’s reins, inserted a foot in the stirrup, and swung himself into the saddle with ease. He stretched an arm down to Celia. “Take hold.”
Gingerly she grasped his arm with both hands, and he caught her frail wrist, pulling her up to sit sideways in front of him. The chestnut pranced uneasily at the added weight. Celia grabbed for some means of support, her hands searching wildly over Griffin’s thighs, waist, and arms.
His breath hissed through his teeth, and he clamped an arm around her, nearly cutting her in two. “Don’t move,” he said, sounding oddly strained. “Don’t touch anything.”
“I-is something wrong?”
Griffin considered telling her yes, something was very wrong, he was a hair’s breadth away from throwing her on the ground and falling on her in a frenzy of lust. The feel of her against him was agony. There was a demanding ache in his loins. His hands itched to roam over her breasts, down her waist, between her thighs. As his mind searched for a subject to distract it from its present course, his gaze happened to fall on Nettle, who was staring at them bemusedly.
“Goodbye, Nettle,” Griffin said meaningfully. Finding himself to be the recipient of an intimidating glare, Nettle wandered back to the house.
Celia felt an icy-hot shock as Griffin’s hand closed over her knee. Blushing violently, she allowed him to draw her leg over the saddle until she was straddling the horse as a man would. Aware of her trembling, he asked her brusquely if she was afraid of horses.
“Yes,” she lied. “A-a little, yes.” S
he could not tell him that the tremors running through her body had nothing to do with the horse, and everything to do with the touch of his hand. She didn’t understand why it affected her so.
The forward lunge of the horse caused her to fall back against Griffin’s chest, and she stayed there, held in place by his arm. They rode so swiftly it seemed they were flying. Griffin seemed to Celia to be well-acquainted with the forest, since it was dark and he clearly had no difficulty finding his way. Night birds flew from their roosts in alarm as the horse passed by. The foliage became dense, and Griffin was forced to slow down.
“Are we going to travel all night?” Celia murmured.
“We’re going somewhere to rest a few hours.”
“Indian huts again?”
Griffin half-smiled. “A deserted woodcutter’s cottage. I use it now and then when I travel to New Orleans along this route.”
“What happened to the woodcutter?”
“He moved to a new place after I paid him for the property.” He laughed softly. “I suppose you think I did away with him.”
“Why should I not think that?”
“Why indeed,” he said dryly.
“Captain Griffin, will you tell me why you are taking me to the Vallerands?”
“Not now.”
“But why—”
“At the moment I don’t feel like explaining.”
For the thousandth time Celia wondered who he really was. “Does everyone call you Captain Griffin?”
“I use other names, depending on the situation.”
“Your real name is French, oui?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because of the way you speak. Your parents must have been French.”
“Creole,” he said quietly. “Would you like to know my first name?”
She nodded, her head still resting on his shoulder.
“Justin.”
“Justin,” she repeated softly.
“Does it mean anything to you?”
“No.”
“I didn’t expect it to,” he said, a puzzling note of irony in his voice.