Beyond the Savage Sea Page 24

  When the time came to undress, she began to shake.

  “Don’t be afraid.”

  “I’m not.” But she couldn’t stop shaking, so he undressed her himself, his hands gentle, his eyes hot. He slowly stripped away her shirt, shift, breeches, stockings, shoes, and her sex-moist drawers, which he kissed. Then he undressed himself, keeping his eyes on hers, shrugging out of his clothes with an urgency that took her breath away, made her know she was needed. When she threw a terrified glance at the bed, he didn’t take her there.

  Planting his feet on the floor, strong legs spread, his hands under her arms and raised her straight up the length of his strong body. His chest hair brushed her breasts soft as a kitten.

  “Wrap your arms around my neck, Edwinna,” he ordered. “Hold on tight.” One at a time, he fitted her legs around his waist. “Lock your ankles at my waist. Don’t be afraid.”

  “I’m not.”

  He gripped her buttocks and lowered her onto his shaft. She gasped at the shock of it, the initial probing, then the sudden burgeoning fullness inside her. She panted. Sweat broke on his forehead, his chest. Gripping her tightly, he began to sway from side to side, gently swinging her. She clawed his hot shoulders.

  “Oh, dear God...”

  “Edwinna.”

  The swinging grew wilder. He pumped, panted, sweated. It was wild and sweet. When her spasms started she cried out, “Drake,” and he plunged a hand to her throbbing spot.

  “Come for me, Edwinna, come.” She did. So wildly that when it was over she melted against him. With a pleased moan, he thrust and took his moment, gripping her close, his body stiff as wood. When he finished, he trembled, as she had. His knees buckled a little, but he caught himself and held her until his erection went down and he could safely set her on her feet. Then he helped her to bed.

  They lay breathing deeply, Drake on his back, one knee raised, his organ limp, wet, glistening, Edwinna lay on her stomach and inched closer, her forehead touching his shoulder. He wearily patted her buttocks. The pat spoke of affection. Blissful, content, she fell asleep to the monotonous drone of the grinder.

  They awoke, startled, when the two o’clock work bell clanged. Jolted awake, they lifted their heads and looked at each other in surprise, happiness.

  “That, Mrs. Steel,” Drake murmured, “is what I call a nap.”

  Mrs. Steel. The name filled her with pride. She gazed at him, aware that her eyes must be shining much too proudly. Obedient to the bell by long habit, she got out of bed and began to dress. He lay watching her. When she stooped to retrieve her clothes, a wet, lustrous globule ran down her inner thigh. She took the shirt, which needed changing, and patted it away. Drake watched, his eyes growing dark, sexual.

  “Do you mind?” he asked softly. “My seed in you?”

  Drake felt himself grow tense, waiting for her answer. Anne had minded. He’d loved her so much. Wanted her so much. Wanted her to want him, all of him, himself, his seed. But Anne had not wanted another pregnancy.

  Edwinna looked at him, her eyes uncertain, honest.

  “No. I don’t mind. Not if it’s of you.”

  “Come here,” he said, his voice husky.

  She did. He drew her onto the bed, took her into his arms, laid her under him, and kissed her passionately. They didn’t return to the harvest fields until four of the clock.

  * * *

  Chapter 16

  The months of spring passed in a golden idyll. Years later when Drake recalled this time of his life, he would remember blue skies, green cane fields, and contentment. He saw the island with new eyes now and appreciated its savage beauty. He took satisfaction in small things—in a day’s work well done, in a slave running to him and calling him Papa. Except for missing his children and his wine business, he was happy.

  He was fond of Edwinna. She proved to be as staunch and loyal a mate as he could want. She wasn’t Anne. He didn’t love her, couldn’t. Anne still owned that part of him. But his fondness for Edwinna deepened every day. In bed she was all that a man could want—passionate, teachable, willing.

  Whenever he thought about returning to England, he felt a pang. He would miss her. He thought about taking her with him, but that would be a cruelty, a gross self-indulgence on his part. London wasn’t Barbados. She would be unhappy there. London was a smoky, crowded, close-packed city where in winter the sun seldom shone and where you could walk blocks without seeing a single blade of green grass. Drake loved it; he’d been born there. But Edwinna wouldn’t love London. She would pine for her cane fields, for her Barbados sun, for blue skies and trade winds.

  His contentment troubled him. The ease with which he was slipping into his role as master of Crawford Plantation drove a spike through his conscience. What was he, a hypocrite? He loathed slavery, yet spent his days contentedly being “Papa.”

  His keen interest in sugar also troubled him. On the day the first batch of cured sugar pots had been brought to the knocking house, he’d waited as excitedly as Edwinna to see if the sugar would be top-quality muscovado or if it would have to be sold at a lesser price. He found sugar as interesting as wine, and it bothered him.

  He didn’t want to get attached to anything or anyone on this island, but his relationship with others grew daily: to Plum; to David, with his compassionate doctoring; to Kena, with her gentle ways; to Tutu, whom he carried about in his arms the way he’d carried Katherine. He’d even grown fond of Dinny and her Jumbo and that sexual scamp Macaw, who needed three wives in order to boil good sugar.

  He smiled walking up from the cane fields in the blowing wind, recalling Macaw’s latest outrageous demand.

  “Macaw still wants a new wife,” Edwinna had said as they had sat at supper the night before. He’d grown used to dining in semidarkness, candles always being in short supply. He’d even grown used to sugar on everything, although Honor had tempered her use of it after he’d barked at her a few hundred times.

  Drake had put his spoon down. “Macaw wants what?”

  “He gave Juba and the twins to Kinto. He wants another wife to replace her.”

  “Edwinna, are we running a plantation or a brothel?”

  She’d smiled broadly. “A plantation.” He’d smiled, too.

  They’d discovered companionship, an easiness with each other, enjoyment in each other’s company. It wasn’t what he’d had with Anne, but it was...special.

  “Macaw already has two wives,” he’d complained. “How many wives does a man need in his bed?”

  “It’s not a matter of bed,” she’d assured him, dipping into her food and beginning to eat. “It’s pride. Macaw is head boiling house slave, and head boiling house slave always gets three wives. It’s a matter of pride.”

  He’d had to grin. “Is that what the liar told you? That it’s a matter of pride?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me educate you, Edwinna. With a man, it is always a matter of bed. Tell him no. Or give him the wife of the Ashanti who died.”

  “I tried to. He doesn’t want a used wife.”

  He’d returned to his eating, thoroughly amused. “Picky, isn’t he?”

  “If he does not get a third wife, he will sulk. When he sulks he boils sugar poorly.”

  “Well, he has that down pat, hasn’t he? If I thought sulking would get me everything I wanted, I would sulk my head off too.”

  As she’d rushed on in her explanation, his gaze had rested on her hair, shining long and lovely in the candlelight. She wore it that way for him, brushed out, soft and thick to touch, fragrant to smell.

  “I told him you would buy a wife for him the next time you go to Bridgetown, Drake.”

  He’d stared, incredulous. “Edwinna. I am not going to shop for a woman to give to Macaw. Good God! I’m a wine merchant, not a brothel keeper.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. It is a small matter to choose one. You are a wine merchant; if you can select good wine, you can certainly select a slave’s wife.”

  He�
�d gone on eating, amusement growing.

  “Very well,” he’d conceded. “I’ll do it. While I’m at it, I’ll buy one for myself. Every planter on the island has one.”

  Her head had come up, her eyes narrowing. He’d seen a flash of jealousy, possessiveness. He’d smiled.

  “I’m teasing.”

  She drew a breath. “Well, never mind about buying Macaw’s wife. I will do it myself!”

  He had smiled then, but now, walking into the wind, he frowned. All of this made him content? He ought to be ashamed.

  He was glad Arthur’s letters came with frequency, full of detail, business, home. The letters preserved his sanity and kept him focused on London.

  During that idyllic spring Edwinna was happy, too—so happy it scared her. She knew from experience that happiness was a transitory thing—here one day, gone the next. She loved Drake—loved him too much. Every day, every night she fell more deeply in love. What would she do when he left? How could she bear up?

  He would leave. She knew it. Each time he received a letter from his brother-in-law, he became pensive, distant, as if he’d already gone. He shared the letters with her, particularly the sweet anecdotes about William or Katherine. They chuckled together, but underneath the companionship, she knew what he was thinking. I want to be home. With my children.

  If she truly loved him, she would send him home, but she wanted to keep him a little longer. She couldn’t send him home. Not yet. But soon, she vowed silently. I swear to you, Drake, I will send you home to your children soon. Just stay with me a little longer—just a little longer.

  * * * *

  Drake and Edwinna received a jolt in March when a letter came from the governor informing them that George and Clive Crawford’s legal heir, a second cousin in England, had preceded them in death, and the ecclesiastical court of London had awarded George Crawford’s plantation to his nearest kin—Edwinna, Harry, and Thomas Crawford.

  Edwinna was elated, and Drake was elated for her. They rode over to the plantation at once, taking Plum with them. Alerted to expect their visit, George Crawford’s overseer came riding out to meet them. He was a sullen man with the stink of kill-devil rum clinging to him. He saw the handwriting on the wall—dismissal.

  They rode into the cane fields first and recoiled at the neglect: unweeded fields, cut cane that had been piled in the paths and allowed to rot. Edwinna’s cane fields grew lush and green, so thick a man couldn’t walk into a ripe field without getting slashed to ribbons by the stiff, healthy foliage, but George Crawford’s fields grew sparsely, like cornfields. Fourth-year rattoon cane had been allowed to spring up in half of the fields, a sign of a neglectful overseer. When they finally came to decent acreage and a field of cane that stood fully ripe, Edwinna’s outrage spilled over.

  “This field is over-ripe. Why haven’t you cut it?” she demanded of the overseer.

  “Ain’t got to it yet.” A cheeky answer.

  Drake kneed his horse forward. “Get to it! Today. I’ll be back tomorrow to check that it’s done. This is Mrs. Steel’s plantation now. You’ll answer to her, and so help me God, if I come back tomorrow and smell you stinking of rum, you’re dismissed on the spot, without your year’s pay. Do you understand?”

  The fellow shot him a sullen look. “Yes, Mr. Steel.”

  They rode on. The more they saw, the angrier they became. Edwinna grew flushed, upset. Plum’s eyebrows knitted into a harsh line across his brow. The slaves’ condition was appalling. They were sick with malnutrition. Out in the fields, they chopped listlessly at the ground, lacking the energy to lift the hoe.

  “What do you feed them?” Edwinna demanded.

  “Loblollie.”

  “What else? Surely plantain. It’s their native food.”

  “Nay.”

  “Surely dried fish, beans, vegetables from the provisions fields?”

  “Mr. Crawford, he didn’t b’lieve in over-feeding ’em.”

  “Over-feeding them?” Drake felt as if he would explode. “God in heaven, Edwinna, we must send food from our plantation!”

  “Yes.” Her eyes blazed with anger. She turned to Plum. “I want two cartfuls of my plantain cut and brought here at once, then two cartfuls every Saturday afternoon. Also, two barrels of dried fish and three barrels of dried beans and sacks of rice.”

  “And do it tomorrow,” Drake said quietly to Plum. “Let’s bring James McCarran here. He can tear out a few acres of that worthless rattoon cane and put in provisions fields and plantain groves.”

  Plum nodded approvingly. “Soil’s poor. Worn out by the cane and not enough fertilizing. But we’ll dung it, bring it back proper within two, three years.”

  They found the mill in working condition, the grinder grinding, the boilers boiling. But the output was meager and of low quality. When they lighted a candle and went into the curing house to knock on sugar pots, even Drake could tell that molasses permeated the sugar from top to bottom.

  “What about Alvis Nansellock?” Edwinna said to Plum when they emerged from the curing house and blew out the candle.

  “My very choice. He will make an excellent head overseer.”

  “Drake, what do you think?”

  “Absolutely, Nansellock.”

  They rode next to the slave village, and as expected, they found the slaves underfed and many of them sick. Edwinna picked up a baby of about twelve months and felt his forehead.

  “This baby is sick,” she snapped at the overseer. “Where is your plantation doctor?”

  “Ain’t got one. Mr. Crawford, he said ‘twas a waste o’money to hire a plantation doctor. Them niggers ‘n bondslaves what’s going to die, they’ll die anyways.”

  Drake riffled a hand through his hair. He wished George Crawford were alive so he could strangle him.

  “I’m taking this baby to my plantation. And his mother. Where is she?”

  “Weeding in the fields, I s’ppose.”

  “Find her,” Drake ordered, “and find the father, too. The poor devil will despair if he comes in from the fields and finds his family gone. He’ll think they’ve been sold.”

  Drake found another sick child in one of the slave huts, a little girl. “Don’t be afraid, sweetheart,” he said tenderly as he picked her up. “We’re going to find your mother and then take you to a doctor.” She was a little thing, no bigger than Katherine.

  When the overseer produced the key to George Crawford’s house, they saw the ultimate obscenity. While his slaves had lived in squalor, Crawford himself had lived like royalty, surrounding himself with every amenity. Silk upholstered furniture stood in the parlor. Oriental carpets graced the floors. Silver chandeliers hung from the ceilings.

  They made a quick tour. In George Crawford’s plantation office, Drake packed up business ledgers and financial papers and arranged for them to be brought to Crawford Plantation. They belonged to Edwinna now, and he intended to study them for her.

  * * * *

  A week later, working by candlelight across from her in her plantation office, Drake closed the last of George Crawford’s ledgers.

  “Congratulations. You are a wealthy woman.” He glanced at his work sheet. “Less seven thousand pounds in creditors’ bills that must be paid, the total value of your uncle’s property—including land, slaves, bondslaves, millworks, house, furnishings—amounts to forty thousand pounds. That’s a conservative estimate because I’m a conservative businessman. It may be more.”

  She gazed at him, stunned. “So much?”

  “Yes. So much. What will you do with it?”

  She propped her elbows on the table and held her head in her hands for a moment, taking it all in. “What will I do with it? Plant the land and sell the furnishings to improve the mill. Why are you smiling?”

  “I’m smiling because you love land the way most women love pretty gowns and jewels.” He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “I’m also smiling because I’m thinking that my entire London property—warehouse, wi
ne shop, and house—amounts to only one-third of an acre. With your two plantations, you oversee eight hundred acres.”

  “But London property is valuable. And someday you will reclaim Highgate Hall, and that’s a grand estate.”

  His smile broadened. “It’s grand because it’s my home and I love it, not because it’s worth a lot of money. It isn’t. The house is a handsome old Tudor that needs repair. The grounds consist of an orchard, a produce field, a small shooting woods where the Steels have hunted deer and pheasant for a hundred and fifty years. It is only twenty acres.”

  “Still,” she said loyally, “it sounds beautiful. I-I would like to see it someday. And see your Thames Street house and wine shop and warehouse, too.”

  “I would like you to see it someday,” he said.

  Her heart pounded. Did he mean it? Pushing the candle aside, he leaned across the table, his lips parting. She leaned toward him and gave him her mouth. He was so sexually eager it thrilled her. He made her feel like...a woman. He reached out and pinched the candle flame, snuffing it out.

  “Let’s go to bed, Mrs. Steel.”

  * * * *

  At supper a few nights later, David Alleyne joyfully announced that Kena was pregnant. It was a blow for Edwinna. Drake congratulated David and sent to the kitchen for wine to toast the event. Edwinna congratulated both of them, hugged them, kissed them. She even took a sip of wine to honor the announcement, a thing she did not normally do. But behind her happy smile, she felt bruised, injured. She felt as if life were passing her by.

  Drake noticed her distress and broached the subject in bed that night. They had just finished making love, and they lay in drowsy contentment, slightly dazed by the wonders they’d shared. Aroused by David’s news, Drake had been in an erotic mood, tender and passionate. It had been wonderful for both of them, and when they finished, he’d gathered her into his arms and kissed her, whispering words of fondness, praise, gratitude. It still thrilled her to think of it. Now he brushed his lips across her temple, found the pulse point, and kissed it.