Defiant Impostor (5 page)

Adam's athletic, solidly built frame felt like a
tightly coiled spring as he strode with the slightest limp toward a
somber-faced group of men standing just beyond the lowered gangplank. He
recognized several neighboring tobacco planters, while the others were local
merchants and townsmen who no doubt had goods aboard the large sailing vessel.

"Adam, my boy, hold up!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Adam saw Robert Grymes,
another neighbor, descend from an open carriage and rush along the dock to
catch up with him. Reluctantly he paused and waited for the portly planter to
reach his side.

"Grymes," he acknowledged, resenting the
delay. He was in no mood for conversation. He wanted to see if the other men
had any information about the survivors.

"What brings you here this fine morning?"
Robert asked jovially, clearly unaware of the
Charming Nancy
's plight. "I would have thought you'd be in the
tobo fields tending to Cary's Finest." The planter wiped his sweaty face
with a silk handkerchief and added in a low aside, "Word has flown that
you've shipped another handsome crop of sweet-scented to England, eh, Adam?
Quite a tribute to James, I'd say, poor bastard. By the by, if you ever tire of
managing Briarwood, I'd be happy to hire you on at my place. Just name your
price. I'd pay a pretty sum to have a crop master like you supervising my
leaf."

Adam had to fight the instinct to tell Grymes he'd do
far better cultivating turnips in his impoverished soil, but he held his
tongue. The last thing he wanted to do right now was discuss tobacco.

"I'll keep your offer in mind," he lied,
eager to end their discourse. "Excuse me."

Resuming his powerful strides, he didn't care if the
somewhat affronted planter kept up with him or not. As Adam approached the
group gathered near the gangplank, Benjamin Carter, a wealthy town merchant as
stout as Robert Grymes, nodded a greeting and stepped aside to admit Adam to
their circle.

"I heard about the fever," Adam said tightly,
shooting another glance at the crowded railing, only to be disappointed again.
"Has the physician finished his inspection of the ship?"

"Not yet," answered the heavily jowled older
man, his expression grim as he shook his bewigged head. "Nasty bit of
business, this. At least half the passengers lost and two-thirds of the crew,
including Captain Keyes. Damn pity. He was an honorable man. Traded with him
for years, just like the Carys."

So the feisty old salt had finally met his end, Adam
thought, distressed by this news. He had liked Samuel Keyes, almost as much as
he had liked James Cary. He had listened to the two men swap many a tale in
front of a roaring fire at Briarwood. Now they were both gone. And Camille?

His every muscle taut, he found it difficult to voice
his next question. "Is there a list of surviving passengers? James Cary's
daughter was to be on this ship. Captain Keyes had gone to England to fetch her
home."

"Cary's daughter, you say?" blustered Robert
Grymes, who had joined their group and been listening to their exchange in
openmouthed disbelief. "Good God!"

Benjamin Carter's face was even more grave as he held
out a rolled document. "The physician's aide just brought us their
official list. Perhaps you might want to take a look first . . ."

Adam took the document from the merchant, his breath
dammed in his chest as he ignored the apprehensive glances from the silent men
surrounding him. He unrolled the stiff paper and read quickly, his eyes drawing
like a magnet to one name.

Camille Cary.

A tic flashed across his tightened jaw, and he tried
not to show his immense relief.

She was alive. His ambitious plan for revenge was still
intact.

"Well?" came Robert Grymes's demanding query.

"She's on the list." Adam's pronouncement was
greeted with a collective exhalation of breath.

"Splendid!" Robert enthused, a smile
splitting his round, sunburned face. "I shall extend an invitation this
very day for her to share supper with us at her earliest convenience. I'm most
eager for Miss Cary to meet Matthew, my eldest son."

I'll wager you are, Adam thought dryly, noting the
shrewd, speculative gleams in the eyes of several of his companions, whom he
knew to have unmarried sons.

As one of the richest heiresses in the Tidewater,
Camille was already creating a stir and she hadn't even set foot on Virginia's
soil. Yet she had been causing a tumult in his own life since he had learned
that the wealthy tobacco planter James Cary had an only daughter being educated
in England who would return to the colony one day to be wed. When his period of
indenture had finally ended and he had become a free man, Adam had looked no
further than Briarwood for a job.

He had hired on as an overseer five years ago at the
age of twenty-four. Even then he had known that he would somehow marry her, and
no one would keep him from it. Not Matthew Grymes. Not any other planter's
privileged, indolent son with his eye on marrying an heiress. Not Satan
himself. Camille formed the very heart of his plan. He couldn't enact it
without her.

Everything Adam had done since that first day at
Briarwood, everything he had become, had been for one reason: revenge. Not a
swift revenge settled by sword or pistol, but a long, tortuous revenge like the
slow oozing of blood from a tiny puncture wound. Until he destroyed Dominick
Spencer, the planter who had made his life a horrible nightmare during his
eleven years of indenture, the man responsible for the senseless deaths of his
parents, he would never be at peace.

Perhaps he would find no peace even then. His body,
mind, and heart bore permanent scars from Dominick's cruel abuse. He would
never forgive, or forget.

Just to be standing here among these prosperous
merchants and planters, and treated as an equal, had taken years of
backbreaking work. He had come a hell of a long way since his days as an
indentured servant laboring in the tobacco fields with a hoe in his callused
hands.

Within two years as an overseer at Briarwood, he had
been elevated to plantation manager and James Cary's trusted right-hand man,
yet that hadn't been enough for him. He had worked even harder and become
renowned as a crop master, a man possessing superior judgment in the production
of tobacco, a man called upon for advice by other planters even though he owned
no land himself.

This title had won him respect and entrance into the
Tidewater's highest social circles, but it still wasn't enough. Only when he
possessed his own plantation would he have the wealth he needed to set into
motion his plan for revenge, and he wanted Briarwood, one of the richest and
most fertile plantations along the York River.

There was only one way to get it: Camille.

Upon hearing that she had finally been summoned home to
Virginia, Adam hadn't been surprised when James Cary had given him permission
to court her; the planter had been pleased that Adam had asked, saying he would
wholeheartedly recommend the match to Camille when she arrived. James had taken
a liking to him and had always treated him like a son, having lost his own two
young sons many years ago. Adam had used this affection to his advantage. He
had done everything in his power to prove to the planter that he could be
trusted, that he was worthy to be considered as a suitor for his daughter, and
as damn good as any other man who might offer for her.

At first, considering his motives, Adam had experienced
some guilt for the strong bond that had developed between them, but it had
faded in the knowledge that when he owned Briarwood, he would respect and care
for the house and land as well as James Cary had and make it prosper as never
before. Adam had allowed himself to grow close to his employer, as close as he
had been to anyone since the death of his parents.

Only a few months after Adam had received permission to
court Camille, James Cary had been killed in a hunting accident, or so it had
been concluded by the county constable. Although Adam had no proof, he believed
it was murder. Now he had another score to settle with Dominick Spencer.

He had seen the two men arguing heatedly the day before
the "accident," and had already learned from James that Dominick also
wished to court his daughter, a desire James vehemently opposed. James Cary had
made no secret of his intense dislike for the man, especially after seeing the
jagged, crisscrossing scars from numerous whippings that were permanently
etched across Adam's back.

Adam's suspicions about Dominick Spencer made him all
the more impatient to woo Camille quickly and marry her. He would let nothing,
and no one, least of all that conniving bastard, stand in the way of his
revenge.

"Careful, man, you're crushing the passenger
list!"

Robert Grymes's exclamation pierced Adam's dark
reverie. He opened his tightly closed fist and handed the crumpled document to
the planter, and was saved from making a reply by the dull thud of footsteps
descending the gangplank. As everyone turned expectantly, Adam could tell at
once from the relieved expression upon the physician's lean, craggy face that
the news was good.

"Well, can the ship be unloaded or not?" one of
the merchants demanded. "I've a full year's income of goods in that
hold!"

"Yes," the physician replied, then added
pointedly, as if to reprimand the man for his mercenary concerns, "and the
passengers and crew may also disembark. I see no signs of the fever among them,
thank God."

Adam had to restrain himself from brushing past the
physician and bounding up the gangplank to meet the young woman who would
become his wife. Yet he didn't want to startle her; James had told him she was
painfully shy. He planned to court her gently, albeit swiftly.

He had always had a way with women; it was not conceit
to think so, just a fact. He had a gift for sensing what a woman wanted, and he
had warmed his bed with lonely, neglected wives seeking discreet diversion, and
with willing waiting-maids desiring a night's pleasure. He already knew that
Camille shunned social events, preferring a quiet, sheltered life. He planned
to offer her the same, along with his protection. By promising her the serenity
she wanted, and backed by her late father's approval, he was certain that in no
time he would easily win her hand in marriage.

If she was the romantic sort, his wooing of her would
be even easier. A few kisses and well-chosen words would only hasten her into
his arms. He would do anything, even tell her that he loved her, to ensure his
success. Admittedly, such a measure would be despicable—he had never before
intentionally misled a woman's affections—but he had worked too damn long and
hard to leave anything to chance.

"Mr. Thornton."

Hearing the familiar deep baritone voice, Adam turned
to find a strapping black man standing just off to one side.

"Good, Elias, you've returned with the
carriage."

"Yes, sir, it's right over there," Elias
said, nodding to the glistening black coach near Adam's tethered horse. As the
slave glanced with anxious dark eyes at the ship, he twisted his tricorn hat in
his huge hands. "Any word about Miss Cary?"

"She's aboard and well, as far as I know, but I
haven't seen her yet," Adam replied. He stepped back as some passengers
began walking down the gangplank, their trunks and other goods being hoisted to
the dock by the remaining crew.

"That's good news, Mr. Thornton! Good news!"
Elias exclaimed, a grin cutting across his face. "I'll go wait by the carriage.
Just give a nod when you want me to load the trunks."

"Thank you, Elias." As the big man strode
away, his broad back proud and straight, Adam ignored the disapproving looks of
his neighboring planters. He had heard it all before. Familiarity with your
inferiors will only breed contempt and disrespect. But that had not been James
Cary's creed, nor was it his.

It was well-known throughout the Tidewater that Cary
slaves were treated humanely; many of them had earned their freedom and
remained by choice as paid workers at Briarwood. As for himself, Adam had
served long enough under the whip to know that cruelty and mistreatment were
the surest ways to inspire hatred. None of the overseers at Briarwood owned
whips. He could not stomach the sight of them.

Adam watched intently as more passengers filed off the
ship, their sickly pallor and uncertain gait suggesting they had narrowly
escaped the fever's dread clutches. Yet everyone seemed happy to be setting
foot upon dry land once more, especially that pretty, dark-haired lady's maid
who had eyed him so lustily a short while ago. As the giggling wench followed a
stout matron down the gangplank and onto the dock, her slim arms laden with
floral-papered hatboxes, she passed by Adam and tripped. The next thing he knew
she was in his arms, hatboxes tumbling to his feet.

"Oh, thank ye, sir, what a fine, handsome
gentl'man ye are!" she gushed, smiling up at him through charcoal-black
lashes as she pressed her hands against his hard, well-muscled chest. "I
would have taken a nasty tumble for sure if y' hadn't caught me." Wetting
her lips seductively, she made no effort to extricate herself from his embrace,
adding in a rush, "Me name's Polly. Polly Blake. Me mistress and I are on
our way to Williamsburg. I don't s'pose y' might have a residence there,
too?"

Wryly amused by the wench's boldness and the open
invitation in her flirtatious dark eyes, Adam was equally relishing the
stirring sensation of her pert breasts pressed against him. But he pushed her
away when he realized that they were creating a scene, from his companions'
laughter and the matron's shocked stare.

"Allow me to help you with your packages, Miss
Blake," he offered, bending to retrieve the hatboxes.

As he straightened and handed them to the flattered maid,
he spied the glint of honey-gold tresses trailing down the slender back of an
elegantly dressed young woman who had just passed him. She continued a short
way, swaying ever so slightly, as if she was having difficulty adjusting to
walking upon a stationary surface, then she stopped and seemed to study the
long line of carriages and wagons just beyond the dock.