Crimson Rapture (57 page)

"You
should see him, darling. His pain, rage, and God, but he is mad with it!"

She
was silent.

"You
must explain how it happened—"

"No,"
she replied softly again.

He
looked at her with incomprehension, then suddenly thought he understood.
"Oh darling," he came to her, "are you afraid? Are
you—after—" Damn but he would choke on the words each time.

"Yes...
and no. I don't know. I only know that I tried to explain what he should have
already known once and—" As though transfixed, her hand reached slowly to
her face where he had struck her. "And I'll not do it again," she
whispered in a firm resolve. "If he wants to send me away, then I'll
go."

"But
he's going to find out sooner or later; he's going to know and then you'll be
in Jamaica." He took her hands and pleaded for Justin. "He's
suffering enough. Don't punish him more."

She
wondered if punishment was her motivation; she couldn't dismiss the possibility
completely. The only thing she knew for certain was that something horrible had
happened to them. "I need time, Richard. I need to make sense of
everything that has happened to us. Everything. I want to go away. I have to
know if I still... if—" and like a physical force, the unfinished thought
pushed her back into Richard's arms and she started crying again.

* * * * *

In
his townhouse and lying on the couch, Justin was suffering the effects of two
sleepless nights, enough liquor to stop an army, the rage and pain of losing
two people he loved so desperately. The shades were drawn against the late
morning sunshine. He held another full bottle of brandy in his hand, and no
longer bothering with a glass, he systematically raised the bottle to his lips,
drank, and set it down again. He thought if he drank long and hard enough, at
some point he would be able to stop thinking.

He
might have been successful, too, had his madness not drawn a series of starling
conclusions stemming from his exact words to Richard. So startling, the
conclusion brought him to his feet pacing in front of the mantel. So startling,
it broke through the stupor of no less than three bottles of brandy.

Yes...

She
had hated him from the start. Hatred from the moment she first saw him, so
different from the imagination of a young girl's heart. Hatred from the day he
abducted her, the day following when he stole her innocence. Only she had been
so terribly afraid of him, so desperate to survive the ordeal, she concealed
her hatred in love. A pretense of love as a desperate means of surviving. A
pretense of love to appease a man she saw as, as—as what? A beast? A pirate? A
killer of men and raper of women? Yes, a man despicably terrifying to her and
this gross fear created the deception of love.

She
escaped at her first opportunity only to soon find herself trapped again.
Captured again. Again she escaped the only way she knew, by pretending love.
There had been many clues throughout their time together; evidence of how she
truly felt about him. The time she traded her wedding ring for a coin to buy a
sketchbook, thinking him cruel and petty enough to deny her. The tears before
and after their wedding night. And then, finally, the French agents presented
her with an opportunity to free herself from him forever.

God
it made sense!

He
had never had her love! Never! He had owned her as a man owns a slave,
possessing her will and even her passion, but never her heart. She had kept
that far from his touch; he had not even been close.

The
thought of how desperate she must have been in the last two years overwhelmed
him. He felt suddenly quite mad. Mad as someone feels upon discovering their
reality is not shared by others. Mad as though he just realized that when he
saw the light of day, others saw the dark of night. He fell into a frenzied
craze; his hands shook and his heart pounded and just as he might have
thoroughly lost control, a single sane thought crashed into his consciousness
and demanded attention.

"Don't
ever let me go."

Abruptly
his thoughts spun. Could she have whispered that while hating him? While
wanting only the opposite could she have laughed and teased, wanting him with
such fierce passion while truly hating him, trembling in fear? Could a pretense
of love be so convincing?

"No!"

And
with this single declaration, the world came back to him with vivid clarity. He
knew. He suddenly knew there had been a terrible mistake. He knew this without
a single doubt and this, seconds before Jacob burst into the room with a letter
in his hand.

"Jacob,
there is a mistake here—"

"Yes,"
and knowing no other way to tell him, Jacob handed him the note to read. Not
allowing anyone to disturb Justin, Jacob had taken and read the note sent by
Richard. The note insisted only that men be sent out to look for Chessy. He had
not understood this but had nonetheless done so. There were still many
unanswered questions.

And
now another note.

Justin
read the letter written in Christina's own hand and could not at first speak.

"The
gravedigger sent it over. It was found on Petiers's body. I already sent some
men out to look for Chessy."

Justin
raced to the door.

"It's
too late." Jacob tried to stop him. "The men just returned. The ship
set sail. She's gone."

"No..."
was said as a desperate plea, and because he could not believe this, did not
want to believe this, he started running. He ran out of his house and onto the
busy street. He kept running and running and running until two miles later, he
reached the dock and stopped.

Like
a time before, he watched a ship slowly sailing to a distant horizon, taking
Christina from him. The closed port bustled about him. Idle sailors clustered
in small groups, sitting, standing, watching, waiting for something, anything
to do. Crates of cargo stacked neatly in front of too many docked ships. A
number of women, preening like cats, peddled their wares to the militamen on
guard—the only men with money since the embargo. And everyone there pretended
not to notice the handsome young man, so obviously drunk and wasted, perhaps
even ruined, standing on the dock calling over and over again the name
Christina.

* * * * *

The
hot Jamaican sun seemed to stop at the meridian. Rows of tall palm trees
completely isolated a mile stretch of white sand beach. At the distant horizon
the boundless azure sky melted into the clear blue waters of the ocean. This
surrounding tropical beauty, the warm breeze and sand, the restlessness of the
ocean water, all transported Christina to another island, another time and
place.

She
finally found her peace.

Kneeling
at the water's edge, she teased and laughed with her son as she taught him the
age-old skill of building sand castles.

Justin
finally found her there.

Standing
at the edge of the trees, he watched silently. He could not for his life move
to them. He had set sail immediately and the short trip proved the longest in
his life. The entire time he had not a single thought but of Christina. He
phrased and rephrased the words he would say to explain a hundred times. He
imagined a hundred responses of hers, not one of them pleasant.

The
ship had hardly been secured at dock before he had jumped off and started
running the three miles to his father's brothers' plantation, running because
he could not wait long enough for a mount to be brought. Nor could he bear the
social pleasantries required upon seeing his uncle for the first time in two
years. He could barely get the words out. "Christina? Where is she?"

Somehow
his uncle understood. "She went out for a picnic at the beach."

"What
beach?"

"Why
Justin, your beach. She's been going there every day since she arrived."

His
beach... The beach where he spent the lonely hours of his childhood. Playing in
the water and lying in the sun, building sand castles. Wondering. Wondering why
no one wanted him at the manor and why he didn't belong at the servants'
quarters. Wondering, as he watched the great ships coming from distant places
and going to still other distant places. Wondering if he had his own ship, if
he could steer her destiny, if it then could take him to a place where he
belonged. Take him to someone who wanted him.

Christina
was on his beach.

And
so, he had run to the beach and now stood watching her. He could not approach.
After waiting for this one moment for an eternity, thinking of nothing else for
as long, he could not move forward.

She
was beautiful. The long gold hair fell unbound from beneath a wide straw sun
hat. She wore a plain white summer day dress, the skirts of which were lifted
and wrapped around her bare legs like boy's breeches. Stark naked, his son sat
across from her with the sand castle between them. The sound of their laughter
lifted over the ever present lure of the ocean, dreamlike and enchanting and
distant.

He
might never have moved forward but Christina suddenly sensed someone watching
them. Tipping back her hat she looked to the trees. Their eyes met and for a
moment he felt the world stand still. Her expression was unreadable, and before
he had dared a breath, she turned away and back to little Justin.

"Look
who's here, darling!"

Little
Justin looked to where his mother pointed. "Fatter!" He cried out one
of the only two decipherable words he had. He stumbled on to his legs and
started running. Running as best as those little legs could carry him,
stumbling every two steps, picking himself up and running again.

And
Justin was running too.

He
swept his son high into the air and little Justin laughed and grinned and
laughed again. Then he held his son and closed his eyes, holding as though he'd
never let him go.

Christina
returned to the blanket spread beneath the cool shade of the trees, content to
watch the happy reunion from a distance. And a happy reunion it was. Stripped
of shirt and boots, Justin chased his boy up the beach and down, wrestled and
tickled him in the sand, tossed him in the air and swung him around a hundred
times. After nearly an hour of such play and knowing just what would wear the
little fellow out long enough for a nap, Justin brought him into the water for
a bath.

Not
a word had passed between them, and as Justin played with his son in the water,
Christina rose and walked a short distance up the beach. She reached a spot
where a small fresh water spring ran into the ocean, and sitting there on the
warm sand, she began tossing pebbles into the blue ocean water, waiting. When
she next looked up, Justin was standing there.

"Chessy?
Is he well?"

The
concern in her eyes reminded him of who she was. "Yes."

"I'm
so glad. I was worried."

Justin
forced his gaze from her and looked out to the ocean. A ship sailed in the
distance. For a long while he could not speak. Having imagined this scene a
hundred times, and as an actor memorizes his part, he knew the exact words he
would say. He knew how he would deliver the words. He had rehearsed a million
times. But suddenly nothing mattered but a simple question.

"Christina,
can you forgive me?"

"Yes,"
she said without a thought of hesitation. It was all so simple really; the one
thing, the only thing she knew with certainty was that— "I love you and I
don't want to live without you."

Justin
struggled to believe the one response he had not imagined.

Seeing
this, she asked the real question. "But I wonder, though, if you can
forgive yourself?"

"I
don't know." And he didn't. At first, after he had understood what had
happened, he had been obsessed with the vision of changing it. Starting when
Steffen reported seeing her with the French agents. Instead of fear, stating
with absolute certainty— Christina did not do that! Then going straight to
Christina to find out what had happened.

He
was not a man to live long on an "if only," and after just a few days
of this fool's fantasy, he faced what he had done and why.

He
had committed a series of abhorrent mistakes, the worst of which was breaking
the trust that bound her love to him. All because he was afraid. The
unconscionable act of striking her was but a symptom of his fear. The fear that
had grown from the lonely hours of his childhood to shadow the whole of his
life. The fear that he would never reach that distant shore, that he would
never find someone who loved him.

His
vulnerability tore swiftly at her heart and she stood up, stepping within an
inch of touching him. "I wish you would," she whispered in a voice
that felt to him like the soft caresses of a gentle breeze. "I want to go
home to Boston. I want to watch the spring turn to summer there and summer to
fall. I want to share the joy of watching our son grow. I want to paint. I want
to have Sunday tea with Hanna and Jacob. I want to eat Hope's pies and listen
to Rosarn and Aggie's silly chatter. Justin," her eyes pleaded with him to
do what she knew would be hardest, "I want you to forgive yourself. I want
to spend the rest of my life loving you.