Captain's Bride (8 page)

Glory felt a rush of desire so poignant it made her
dizzy. His lips were full and insistent, and a warm, pervasive glow
spread through her limbs. She felt hot and languid, tense and
shivery all at the same time. His hands cupped her face, his firm
fingers guiding her in the kiss while they gently held her captive.
Her nipples hardened against the fabric of her dress, felt heavy,
and just a little achy. His tongue searched her mouth, tasting
every comer, taking her breath away, making her head spin.

Glory had been kissed before, dozens of times, by
countless suitors. Sweet, chaste kisses, warm on her lips. Promises
of things to come. The kiss she experienced with Nicholas Blackwell
was like no other. She wanted the kiss to go on forever, but even
that wouldn’t have been enough. When his hands moved down the
bodice of her dress to cup the weight of her bosom, when his
fingers teased the stiff peak through the soft green fabric, Glory
knew exactly what it was she wanted from Nicholas Blackwell, and
the thought cleared her mind like a dip in an icy stream.

“Please, Captain,” she whispered, pulling away, her
voice a little shaky. “This is too . . . I mean, I didn’t intend to
. . . I mean, I don’t think we should . . .”

“I know
exactly
what you mean, Miss
Summerfield.” His voice sounded husky as he twisted away from her,
trying to ease the bulge in his breeches Glory pretended not to
see. Her face flamed scarlet, and she was glad a cloud had covered
the moon.

Nicholas glanced at the side of the road. “I didn’t
intend to, either.”

They rode the rest of the way in silence, Glory’s
lips still tender from the blush of his kiss, her heart still
hammering uncomfortably. As she glanced at his angular profile,
watched the wind blow strands of his curly black hair and moonbeams
lighten his usually dark gray eyes, Glory began to understand why
women like Lavinia Bond would risk their honor for Nicholas
Blackwell.

Mose stopped the carriage some distance from the main
house to let Willie out, with instructions as to which cabin
belonged to Mose. In the morning Willie could slip back into the
box for the long ride to the wharf in Charleston. From there
Captain Blackwell would see that he reached safety in the
North.

Glory and the Captain said a detached good-night, but
Glory thought he looked at her differently somehow. She knew she
saw
him
in a different light. She desired Nicholas
Blackwell, desired a man for the very first time in her life, and
Glory felt both stunned and a little ashamed. She’d always known
her father was a man of lusty appetites—at least he had been until
Hannah died. After that he’d gone to Charleston, she was sure, to
call on the ladies of the evening. He had never again visited the
slave quarters, as he had when Hannah lived there.

Until tonight, Glory had always been certain she’d
inherited her mother’s more delicate sensibilities regarding a
woman’s duties in the marriage bed. To her mother, intimacy was an
obligation. After Glory was born, Louise had been thankful when
Julian stopped visiting her room altogether. Her mother had
explained to Glory that what happened between a man and a woman was
for procreation, to bring new life into the world. Passion was
something only a man enjoyed. Glory had always believed her
mother—until tonight. Surely she hadn’t inherited her father’s
passions instead of her mother’s! But now Glory wasn’t so
certain.

Julian spotted the change in attitude the moment
they entered the dining room early the following morning. Last
night both had pleaded fatigue and gone straight to their chambers.
This morning Glory watched Nicholas covertly from beneath her thick
dark lashes, an achingly wistful look on her face.

And Nicholas smiled. Not a thin, narrow, mirthless
smile, but a real, genuine, full-fledged smile. At least when he
looked at Glory.

Julian wondered what could have happened between them
on the road last night, and part of him questioned his judgment in
throwing them together so much. The other part said he’d had to
give his daughter the chance at love he’d known only briefly.

Now Nicholas was leaving. And if the look on Glory’s
face was any indication, she was damned sorry to see him go.
Nicholas didn’t look any too pleased himself.

“Good-bye, Captain Blackwell,” Glory was saying.
They’d walked outside on the piazza to stand in the warm spring
sun.

Nicholas took her slim fingers in his hand and
brought them to his lips. His eyes, usually a dark gray, looked
lighter somehow. “It’s been a pleasure, Miss Summerfield. More than
you’ll ever know.”

“Will you be returning to Charleston soon?” she
asked, almost willing him to say yes, it seemed to Julian.

“I’m afraid not.” He didn’t add anything further, and
Julian wondered why he sounded so final while his expression seemed
to belie his words.

Glory straightened. “Then I wish you well, Captain.”
She turned to go, her head held high, fair hair gleaming in the
early morning light.

“And you, Glory. Don’t settle for less than what you
want.” He glanced pointedly at Julian. Then he climbed aboard the
calèche, his rented saddle horse trailing behind. The captain had
found the animal lame that morning, so Mose was driving him into
Charleston.

“Thank you again, Julian,” Nicholas called out. “For
everything.”

As the carriage rolled into the distance, Julian
moved to stand beside his daughter. She looked down the lane until
the calèche turned the bend in the road and moved out of sight.

“You really liked him, didn’t you?” Julian said
softly, meeting his daughter’s troubled gaze.

“Too much” was all she said.

Glory spent the next few weeks determinedly trying
to forget Nicholas Blackwell. It was no easy task. She attended
several soirees and finally Miriam’s costume ball with Eric Dixon.
But now the men who fawned over her seemed immature or dandyish.
When she kissed Eric and felt nothing more than a pleasant glow,
she thought of Nicholas’s more passionate embrace. Whenever she saw
Lavinia Bond, she fought the torturous image of Nicholas lying with
the luscious red-haired woman, his hands caressing her, his warm
lips brushing her eager flesh. Worst of all, she felt jealous that
it was Lavinia and not she who had been the object of his
ardor.

Not until the first of May did Glory’s life return to
some semblance of order. She’d resigned herself to marrying Eric
Dixon as her mother had strongly begun to urge.

“It’s time you married,” she’d say. “Eric is a fine
southern gentleman. His family has lived here for generations. You
two will make a splendid match.”

It was just like her mother. Her marriage to Julian
Summerfield had been arranged. Love was never a consideration. As
far as Glory knew, her mother had never really been in love. She
shared a home with Julian, but little more. Proud of the plantation
she and Julian had built, Louise valued the land and the family
name. Oh, she loved Glory, in her own detached way, and probably
even Julian. But she revolved in a distant world, where closeness
to others was not allowed.

Glory was seated in the upstairs withdrawing room
practicing on the pianoforte, the sun streaming through the open
window, when her mother walked in. Glory had never seen so bleak an
expression, such utter despair on her mother’s usually placid
face.

“Mother! My God, what’s happened?” Glory leaped from
the piano bench and hurried across the room, the layers of her
ruched skirts rustling with the motion. Plenty burst into the room
behind Louise, while April entered sobbing.

“Get your mama over to da sofa, chile’ ” Plenty
commanded, and Glory meekly did as she was told. “You sit down,
too.”

“Me! Why do I need to sit down? Plenty, what’s
happened?”

“It’s Julian,” her mother choked out. “He was riding
Hannibal, taking the hedges. Hannibal went down. Julian hit his
head.” She sat there staring straight ahead, her face as pale as
porcelain, her eyes bleak and vacant. “Glory, your father is
dead.”

Glory was sure she couldn’t have survived the ordeal
if it hadn’t been for her half brother, Nathan.

The tall light-skinned Negro arrived on a packet from
New York just two days after her father’s death. He’d been on his
way home from school for the summer. A year younger than Glory,
Nathan looked several years older. He was handsome and well built,
tall and broad-shouldered like his father. Since his mother had
also been of mixed blood, his features looked more Caucasian than
Negro. Having spent most of his life in boarding schools, he was
highly educated and well spoken.

“Oh, Nathan,” Glory cried against his shoulder. “I
miss Papa so much.” They had walked down near the river, below the
formal gardens. A sudden spring storm seemed imminent: clouds
gathered and threatened, and the air hung thick and still.

“I just can’t quite believe it,” Nathan told her. “I
keep expecting him to crest the rise on his big black stallion or
walk up to my cottage.” Nathan wasn’t allowed inside the main
house—Louise Summerfield wouldn’t tolerate the presence of Julian’s
bastard son. So Nathan had been raised by Sara, one of the Negro
women, in the small cottage Julian had built for Hannah. A place
away from the rest. A place where he and Hannah could be alone.

Hannah had been a quiet-spoken young woman, the child
of a well-educated quadroon from New Orleans. As a little girl,
Hannah had been taught to read and write, though by law it was
forbidden. When her mother died, she’d been sold to pay their
debts, though she was then only a child of fourteen. At the manor,
she’d blossomed into a beautiful young woman, and Julian had fallen
in love with her.

Everyone had looked the other way, even Louise. The
affair had lasted a little less than two years, just long enough
for Nathan to be born. Hannah died when a second child came early
and complications set in. Glory’s mother had wept with joy; Julian
had grieved for weeks, and Nathan had been left alone.

“I never thought it could happen to him,” Glory said
to Nathan. “He was so strong. Like a rock. And always there when
you needed him.” She wept softly against Nathan’s shoulder, his
tall frame looming above her more slender one.

“I miss him, too,” Nathan said quietly. Living on the
edge of plantation society, belonging neither to the Caucasian race
he was schooled in nor to the Negro, despite his curly black hair
and cocoa coloring, Nathan had grown up fast. He held no illusions
about life. He had loved his father. Now his father had been taken
from him, just as his mother had. Nathan had always been
alone—except for Glory.

“Why did it have to be him, Nathan?” Glory said. “He
was so good and kind. He always worried about everyone except
himself, always wanted the best for everyone.”

“I know, Glory. I know.”

At first Glory had been unable to cry, unable to
accept her father’s death as real. Once Nathan came home and they
shared each other’s grief, Glory couldn’t
stop
crying. When
the day of the funeral arrived, Glory was sure she had no tears
left.

She stood inside the little wrought-iron fence that
surrounded the family plot. All by herself. Her mother had
relegated Nathan to a place among the Negroes, and, though Glory
had cried and pleaded, threatened and cajoled, Nathan had finally
persuaded his sister to leave the matter alone.

“Father would want you there, Nathan,” she’d
said.

“Father will know I’m close by.”

After that, Glory had refused to stand beside her
mother. Instead she stood a few feet away, a bitter spring wind
billowing the heavy skirts of her black silk mourning dress. The
cloudy day seemed appropriate. While the minister droned on, Glory
stood with her head held high, but she was grateful for the dense
veil she wore, which shrouded her drawn features from the scores of
friends and relatives who had gathered to pay their last
respects.

As Glory heard the low keening of the slaves on the
hillside, saw the first shovelful of dirt pitched onto her father’s
casket, she felt a knot of despair that tightened like a noose and
threatened to suffocate her. Head spinning, she swayed unsteadily.
Tears filled her eyes, and she fought to keep them from spilling
onto her cheeks. The mourners around her blurred into a single gray
mass.

She sensed his presence even before he touched her,
his strong, sun-browned hand sliding beneath her elbow to share
with her a little of his strength. She didn’t need to look up to
know that Nicholas Blackwell stood beside her, but when she did,
she found him staring straight ahead, his quiet support giving-her
the courage she needed. He said not a word, his expression
carefully controlled, but his usually swarthy complexion looked
wan, his mouth no more than a thin, grim line.

Glory knew in that moment that he shared her pain,
and in realizing others had loved her father as she had, she felt a
little of her own pain go away.

When the service was over, Nicholas led her from the
graveyard beneath the oaks. “You know how sorry I am,” he said, his
voice heavy and low.

“Thank you for coming, Captain.”

“I’m afraid I can’t stay. I heard about the accident
in a port just south of here. Your father was respected and
admired. News of what happened traveled fast. I came as quickly as
I could, but I have to return to my ship right away.”

“I understand.”

“I’m headed for Barbados. At the end of the month
I’ll be back in Charleston for three days on my way north. If
there’s anything I can do, anything you need, just send word.”

“Thank you.”

He didn’t offer to see her, didn’t want to see her
again. Nicholas had battled images of Gloria Summerfield since the
day he’d left the manor. He was just beginning to forget her when
he received news of the accident. Now he felt the same intense
attraction, the same pounding in his blood, and knew he’d again
spend weeks fighting his desire for her.