Abandoned Memories (19 page)

“What of Graves? What of Lewis?”

“Graves died from his own foolishness,” Blake said. “And we will search for Mr. Lewis tomorrow.”

The fire sputtered and snapped as a wave thundered ashore.

“He probably drowned when the river rose,” one woman offered.

Thiago tossed a log into the fire, shooting sparks into the black sky. “Or he become Lobisón—Wolfman.”

Groans and wide eyes filtered over the group. A woman gasped.

James chuckled. “Hogwash. Come now, everyone. Let’s keep our wits about us.”

“Wits? You go on about curses and temples and supernatural beings, and you’re telling
us
to keep our wits about us?”

James rubbed his chin. The man did have a point. Yet he didn’t have time to respond before a distant sound echoing through the trees made the hair on his arms prick to attention.

The eerie howl of a lone wolf.

HAPTER
16

A
ngeline hefted the basket of fruit in her arms. With only one orange and a half-spoiled mango, it wasn’t terribly heavy, but she had an ache in her shoulder that wouldn’t go away. Perhaps it was sleeping on the sand these past two weeks. Or perhaps it was an ache to match the one in her heart every time she saw James and had to force herself to avoid him. Avoid talking to him, seeing him, being anywhere near him. Which was difficult to do when they lived on the same beach. On the occasions when their eyes met, she saw the hurt in his, the yearning. And she wanted to scream, to cry…to run into his arms. But that was not possible. Not with Dodd watching her every move, slinking around the beach and jungle, eyeing her like the wolf that serenaded them each night with its baleful howl.

Was it possible that Mr. Lewis had, indeed, transformed into the beast? For they had not been able to find hide nor hair of him since the flood.

She glanced into the canopy, searching for fruit, but instead saw dozens of colorful birds hopping from branch to branch, trilling their happy tunes. Always happy. Always carefree. Oh, how she envied them. They had naught to fear from flood or ants or invisible beasts. A verse from scripture rose in her mind…something about how birds neither sow nor reap, but God cares for them. She pushed it aside. Comforting words meant for others. Not her.

Lowering her gaze, she scanned the delicate green lace of life that surrounded her. Where had the other ladies gone? Magnolia, Sarah, and the two other women who’d been sent in search of fruit. Nothing but ferns and vines and leaves large enough to be gowns met her gaze. Not to mention the occasional spider or lizard or frog. But they didn’t bother her. She had bigger reptiles to deal with. Still, Blake had instructed the women to stay together.

In truth, she relished the time alone. Sharing a shelter with four other women had not allowed her any time to think, to decide what to do about Dodd. Even though, deep down, she already knew her answer. And that answer saddened her more than anything.

Batting aside a leaf, she moved forward, her boots sinking into the still-sodden ground. Perspiration dampened her neck and brow and made her long for the ocean breezes she left behind only moments before. Prying her shoe from the mud, a memory forced its way into her thoughts. Of a dark night and another muddy puddle. Of another pair of shabby boots—with holes in the toes—stepping into the muck as she made her way down the streets of Richmond. The icy mire had seeped into her stockings and crept up her ankles until her legs shivered. Not wanting to risk being recognized, she’d hid her face in the folds of her cloak as she kept to the shadows—hungry, cold, wet, and wishing for death. Angeline tried to shake away the memories. The depths to which she’d been reduced—begging on the streets like an urchin.

Little did she know, she would sink lower still.

She drew in a deep breath of the humid air so full of life, hoping some of that life would infiltrate her soul. But instead she heard crackling rising from all around. Fearing what it foretold, she stopped and squeezed her eyes shut. But the voice slithered over her ears nonetheless. It was the same voice of kindness, of charity, she’d heard that night over two years ago. The voice that had saved her.

And brought her to her doom.

She opened her eyes.

“Oh, you poor dear,” Miss Lucia said, clipping Angeline’s chin and turning her face side to side, just as she had done that dark night. “Such a fright. And so thin. Why, I declare, you are in dire need of a hot meal and an even hotter bath. I have just the thing for you, darling. Now, don’t you worry.”

Angeline could do nothing but stand and stare at the woman with her ample bosom and rounded hips, bedecked in glitter and feathers just as she had been that night. She’d been stunned by the woman’s interest in her. Wary, of course, but too hungry and tired to care. Now, with Miss Lucia standing before Angeline looking as real as any of the trees that circled them, all the emotions of that night returned—raw and festering like open sores. She had allowed Miss Lucia to take her to an upstairs room at the Night Owl. She’d eaten her food, taken a bath, and slept in one of her feather beds. The woman had been so kind, Angeline wondered if this was what it felt like to have a mother, an older woman to care for her and love her and teach her the things women must know. On Angeline’s fourth day at the Night Owl, she discovered Miss Lucia would skip over the first two and only provide the third.

Now, placing a jeweled hand on her rounded hip and tapping her fan to her chin, Miss Lucia sashayed around Angeline. “Yes…yes…you will do nicely.” She had dressed her up in a lovely gown of creamy taffeta with a red silk ruche. And a bodice far too low for Angeline’s tastes. “Now, you go out there, honey, and be friendly. That’s all I ask in return for my hospitality.” And then she’d smiled, that pearly smile of hers, made all the whiter by her brightly painted red lips.

The trees shrunk into tables, branches into men with tankards. The leaf-strewn ground into a floor strewn with other far nastier things: spit and ale and tobacco. And Miss Lucia nudged her into the crowd. All eyes shot to her like darts to a bull’s-eye, leering, salivating. Hands reaching, swatting her behind, pulling her onto laps.

“Leave me alone!” She shoved them away. “Don’t touch me.”

A meaty hand gripped her arm. She struggled to free herself. “Let me go!”

“Angeline!”

She looked up and saw Dodd smiling at her with a grin of merciless victory. The tables and men faded. One glance over her shoulder told Angeline Miss Lucia was gone as well. Yet Dodd remained. She tore from his grasp and backed away, rubbing her arm. “You’re real.”

“In the flesh, my dear. But I believe you were having a dream. Or perhaps a vision?”

“A nightmare since you were in it.” She reached for her pistol but remembered she’d lost it in the flood. Then, stooping, she picked up her basket and fruit. At least she’d have something to swat him with should he come nearer. “What do you want?”

“It’s been two weeks, my dear. I must hear your answer.”

“Surely you’ve seen that I’m no longer associating with James. In fact, I’ve told him to leave me alone.”

A breeze lifted strands of his blond hair as his narrowed eyes assessed her. “What does that matter to me?”

“Your threat was due to our courtship, was it not?”

“
Threat
is such a nasty word. I prefer to call it an arrangement.” He fingered a leaf by his side. “And yes, your pending affair with the good doctor prodded me to action, though I had hoped you would come to me on your own.”

“And why would I do that?”

“Because of
what
you are.” Incredulous, he looked at her as if the fact were inescapable.

Shame and fear burned in her throat. “I am not that woman anymore.”

“Ah ah ah.” He wagged a finger. “You can never erase such a blemish from your soul. What does the scripture say about fallen women…something about pigs with rings in their snouts?”

Perspiration slid down her back. “What would you know of the Bible?” What would
she
, in fact? Just snippets from her childhood when her father would read to her. Thankfully, she remembered no such reference to jeweled pigs.

“Regardless. The
arrangement
stands. You come to me twice a week and I keep your shameful little secret.” Blue eyes scanned her from head to toe. He licked his lips.

She had no doubt the carnal letch would keep to his word if she complied. Even if he also knew the other truth about her, she doubted he’d give up her services to tell anyone. Nevertheless, she had but two cards to play with this huckster. She forced a complacent expression. “And why should I care if you tell everyone?”

He smiled. “Because I’ve been watching you, my dear, and I see how much you value your newfound friends. All that would disappear if they knew who you really were. In fact, the pious doctor may even ostracize you from the colony. He does seem to have an aversion toward trollops.”

The word burned her ears and sped to the canopy, where birds gobbled it up and spit it back down.
Trollop, trollop, trollop
.

Dropping the basket, she covered her ears.

“Come now, it’s not so bad. Why, you could even start up your own business in New Hope. Lord knows the town needs a little entertainment.”

“Never! I came here to get away from that.”

He cocked his head. “Yet we can’t change who we really are, can we?”

Tears burned behind her eyes, but she forced them back. She had thought she could change. She had thought she could become a real lady.

“Perhaps you are right.” She glared at him. “You are still the vulgar swine you always were.”

He flinched as if wounded. But that couldn’t be. The man had no heart to wound. “My point is proven, then.”

Angeline stared at the ground, expecting to see her heart, her very soul bleed from her boots into the mud. She had but one card left, but it broke her heart to play it.

“I will leave.”

Finally she got a reaction out of him. “What?”

“I’m going back to the States.” She lifted her chin, enjoying her moment of power. “Thiago is taking a group to Rio tomorrow. I intend to accompany them.” Back to a land where her past was known and she was wanted by the law. Back to horrid memories and a hopeless future.

But what choice did she have?

A slice of sunlight angled over his crooked nose as his eyes filled with malice. “I will still tell them.”

“I’m sure you will.” She knelt to pick up her basket and fruit and then pivoted on her heels. “Good day, Mr. Dodd.”

Fingers as tight as bands clenched her arm and yanked her back. “No wench walks away from Dodd!”

Pain burned into her shoulders. She struggled against his grip and was about to kick him in the shin when James, hair askew, face red, stormed into the clearing. “What did you call her?”

James couldn’t believe his ears. Or his eyes. He knew Dodd had a fetish for Miss Angeline. He’d seen the way he gaped at her, licking his lips as if she were his next meal. Which was why he’d followed the man when he plunged into the jungle. But this! Grabbing her. Calling her foul names! Charging forward, he shoved Dodd, sending him toppling backward. Eyes firing like cannons, Dodd righted himself and brushed his vest where James had touched.

Despite the heat, Angeline’s face was white as frost. Her moist eyes, filled with terror, shifted between him and Dodd.

He’d kill the man for frightening her. “How dare you touch her!” He barreled toward him. Dodd’s eyes widened, but he had no time to react before James clutched his collar and thrashed him against a tree trunk. “What kind of lawman are you?” He ground Dodd’s back into the rough bark, but fear had fled the man’s face, replaced by superior smugness that ignited James’s rage.

“I did the woman no harm. Ask her yourself.”

James glanced over his shoulder, expecting to find Angeline relieved, perhaps even grateful to have been rescued from such a monster. Instead she trembled like the leaves all around them. “Let him alone, James,” she said almost sullenly.

“He should be taught how to treat a lady,” James growled.

Dodd snickered, and James tightened his grip on his throat.

“I said leave him be.” Angeline’s voice turned commanding. “He did me no harm.”

Something was wrong. Why would such a strong, independent woman like Angeline—one who became a dragon at the slightest provocation—allow a worm like Dodd to defame her good character? James released the fiend.

Stretching his shoulders, Dodd circled him with a wary eye.

“Nevertheless, you will apologize for insulting her character,” James said.

Dodd and Angeline glanced at each other as if they shared a secret. “There is no need,” she said. Pleading filled her misty eyes.

“There is
every
need.” He grabbed Dodd’s arm and squeezed until the man winced. “Apologize to the lady.”

For some reason, Dodd found this amusing. “My apologies,
milady
.” The title rode like a taunt from a jester’s lips.

Releasing him yet again, James stepped back, resisting the urge to punch the smirk from his lips. Dodd winked at Angeline, cast a scathing look at James, then turned and sauntered away, whistling a happy tune.