The Maidenhead (9 page)

“—yew would be bored," she said, surprising herself at her own audacity.

“I would have myself an obedient and trustworthy wife." He lowered his head and brushed her resistant lips with his. He paused.

In the silence, a log fell to pieces on the hearth.

He repeated his act. This time his mouth lingered on hers. His tongue separated her lips and stroked her tongue, as if daring her to respond.

She was inexperienced with this dallying. Sex was an act of urgency, to be rapidly engaged in and completed upon the spilling of the man’s seed. Despite her mental resistance, she felt a glow of pleasure deep in her belly. Why not? she thought. Tomorrow, as intoxicated as they both were, neither of them would probably remember this.

Her tongue answered the challenge . . . dueled with his. Aroused, she grew bolder. Her tongue traced even the tops of his teeth, swept his mouth’s hot, wet recesses. Their tongues entwined, withdrew, and engaged again. She reveled in the sweet taste of his mouth.

He made a sound in his throat that was like a muted roar.

At once, she ceased her seductive attempt at kissing. She tilted her head back to stare up into his hot, glittering gaze. Her mouth suddenly felt parched.

"Your training," he said quietly, “is more extensive than I at first perceived. A common wench with an uncommon passion. While you are not of the class of Lady Clarissa, still, how fortunate I am to find a woman who can match my own passion, after all."

His words seared her soul like a hot iron. Her damp lashes blinked back a betrayal of weakness and a slow, contemptuous smile curl her lips. "Passion? So far, yew have behaved like a randy goat."

Like flint struck by steel, his gray eyes gave off sparks. His voice, however, resonated with languid curiosity. “Do I now?" He drew her smock down over her shoulders. His callused hands caressed her flesh as they moved the linen down the length of her arms.

"Aye, yew do." Her breasts were bared. Her nipples, burned under his gaze, grew hard. She wanted to cover her breasts, but her arms wouldn’t move. His touch had a lethargic affect on her.

“Amends are in order then." He drew the shift on down past her hips and let it slide to the floor. "You have to understand that at an early age I discovered sexual pleasure," he said casually, "and I continue to rediscover it endlessly." His hands were on her hips and then easily sprang loose the knotted drawstring that secured the damp rag strip between her legs. It, too, slithered to the floor.

With a gasp, she covered her eyes with her hands.

"There is no need for embarrassment," he continued casually as he shrugged out of his leather jerkin.

She peered between her fingers. His bare chest gleamed in the firelight.

"I find the feminine body, including all its attendant functions, most exciting." He unbuttoned the flap of his trousers and his thick cylinder of flesh sprang free. "You see, I was the Prince of Revels at Middle Temple and sometimes my appetite for passion still manages to rear its lusty head.”

As she closed her eyes again, she wished she could close her ears as easily.

"Exploring the pleasures of a woman gives me insatiable pleasure.” She heard the soft thud of what she guessed were his moccasins. "I suppose hedonism is for me second nature.” Tenderly, he kissed the hollow of her neck where it sloped into her collarbone.

The muscles low in her groin tightened spasmodically. Her head lolled to the other side, giving him full access to her shoulder. She could feel his erection pressing into her belly.

"For instance, merely your musty scent awakens in me a fierce desire for you."

He brushed a kiss on the rise of her breast and at the same time grasped her upper arms, moving her slowly backward until her calves met the bedstead. Her eyes closed, she was disoriented. It seemed the mattress rose up to enfold her. When she felt his mouth shrouding her navel, and his tongue plunging into its well, her lids snapped open. The ceiling’s smoke-blackened beams loomed above her. “Please . . .”

"I delayed in revealing the scope of my sensual nature,” he said, “until I judged you ready to participate.”

With an indrawn breath, she clasped his head, tunneling her fingers through his long hair, digging into his scalp.

His lips traveled the path between her ribs up through the shallow valley created by her breasts. One hand cupped her breast and his fingers tweaked its turgid nipple. She gasped at the sharp pleasure the action caused.

“I see now I have underestimated your ability.” Braced on his elbows, he moved further up over her. Softly, he kissed each of her lids. With concentrated tenderness, his forefinger traced each of her aureoles. "Your skin, where it is untouched by the sun, is smooth beneath my fingers and quite lovely.

She was beguiled by this gentleness, until he suddenly mounted her. She cried out, arched toward him, only to feel him drive deep inside her.

Then he dipped his head, his wild mane sweeping her face, and lathed her nipples with light, passionate kisses. This alternation of sensitivity and fierceness was only the beginning of the exquisite passion to which he subjected her, mind and body alike.

Toward dawn, she stirred within his arms. Both their bodies were misted with perspiration. She stretched languorously, feeling drained yet, paradoxically, replete. With a contented little sigh, she tentatively explored the tender spots of her damp inner thighs.

"Modesty?"

“Mmmm?”

"Don’t mistake unbridled carnal devotion for affection."

Chapter Nine

Goodwife Dartmouth. How strange the name sounded to her ears. No longer was she the Lady Clarissa Lockridge. She was the wife of the Right Reverend Patrick Dartmouth, who never suffered an impious thought.

She, who had been accustomed to carriages, was riding pillion on a nag that managed to find every pothole in the well-traveled trail. Her arms tightened almost imperceptibly around Patrick’s middle.

She could only be relieved that he could know naught of the impious thoughts that bestirred her own middle. Or of Nigel’s more than chaste kisses when last they parted. She had bribed the guard to let her and the satirical poet see each other, if only for a few minutes. Within days of those too few rapturous moments, she had been banished to the country home in Kensington in preparation for a hastily arranged marriage to the Duke of Clarence.

Compared to Nigel, Patrick was so deadly dull.

Compared to London, Jamestown was deadly dull.

The bleak little hamlet of Henrico could not even be called alive. Patrick had related the history of the place, which originally had fifteen lots of one acre each. The town had developed because tobacco planters north of Jamestown wanted a convenient tobacco inspection site.

Henrico’s palisaded fort was a company compound that included a longhouse, a log church, and a store. Outside the compound, separated by a muddy pasture, was the company barn, a tavern that was little more than a privy, and a cluster of crude cottages, one of which she and Patrick shared.

Well, shared was not entirely accurate, she thought with a relieved sigh. At night she took the bedroom, he the loft.

"Thou art tired. Mistress Dartmouth?” her husband asked, mistaking her sigh.

"Aye. How much farther to the Jones farm?”

"Not much farther. Mayhap another half hour.”

The trail wound beneath gnarled mulberry trees, feathery green acacias, and magnolia bushes. They spread a cooling canopy against a steamy summer sun that made her green riding jacket, finished with hand ruffs, uncomfortably warm. In the branches, magpies and wrens warbled notes that contributed to a stirring symphony of mating calls.

Just beyond the wall of trees flowed the James. The trail followed it all the way through the valley to Jamestown. The river was all ears and a great gossiper. For scores of miles westward, word had gone through the upper reaches of its valley that brides had been coming to Jamestown and that bachelors on the scene would have prime choice.

The bachelor Patrick Dartmouth had been on the scene, but Clarissa suspected he had not planned on fetching back a bride.

Now, the man was hoping that the great gossiper would likewise spread the word of the Christian god to the Chickahominies, Mattaponi, Pamunkey, and Powhattans, all members of the powerful Algonquin Confederation. Patrick had told her that this network numbered some 200 villages.

His fervent devotion to this religious cause aroused within Clarissa both admiration and a certain jealousy. Was she of so little beauty that he noticed her not?

As for him . . . well, if his features didn’t look as if they had been chiseled by an amateur sculptor, he might be considered of passable appeal. His thickly lashed hazel eyes could be passionately warm when he spoke of his hopes of converting his Indians.

At last, the Jones farm came into view. She would be glad to see Modesty. The nimble- witted woman was a diversion, despite the accusations that she was guilty of all sorts of chicanery. Only six women lived at Henrico, and they were old beyond their years, worn out by the land and lost hopes.

Clarissa fought back a shudder. In a few years, she would be like those women. She had to be careful. She couldn’t let down her standards in the midst of people either hopeless or indifferent to their situations. She thought of the girl Sally. What chance did she have?

Patrick trotted the mare past a snake-fenced pasture where eight or ten head of cattle grazed, then past fields of oats; flax for linen; tall, tasseled Indian cornstalks; but not the ubiquitous, noxious tobacco plant. Closer in, just beyond a peach orchard, were a swine pen, a tanning shed, and a large barn and corral.

Near a huge, sturdily built cabin, Modesty was working the kitchen garden. She squatted between rows of bushes bearing a yellow crook- neck vegetable called squash, or
Askutasquash
, the Indian term. The foods of the New World were strange and unsavory to Clarissa’s taste.

Sighting them, Modesty rose, arched her back, rubbing the small of it, then started toward her visitors. Her strangely colored eyes were alight with amusement. “By me troth, Clarissa,” she said, wiping her grimy hands on her apron, "I never thought I would see yew astride a horse. Good morrow, Reverend Dartmouth."

"Greetings, Mistress Jones.” Patrick dismounted and held up his hands to help Clarissa down. Those long, slender hands easily closed around her corseted waist. He lowered her to the ground so that she stood toe to toe with him.

She peeked up at him from beneath the narrow brim of her fashionable black riding hat with its bows and ostrich feathers. Her nearness seemed to have no effect on him.

"Thy hat isn’t tilted enough,” he said. He adjusted its brim slightly forward, then turned back to Modesty. "Thy husband, is he within calling distance?”

Modesty’s mouth curled in a big smile. "Yew can be certain that me husband, wherever he be on the farm, already knows of yewr arrival.”

Clarissa felt a great pity for the woman, married to such a beast of the wilds as Mad Dog Jones.

Patrick had a higher opinion of him than she did. "The man has a peculiar sense of honor. I mean he believes more in what a person is than what they say. He’s a man who does things by instinct rather than by decision,” he had told her.

Apparently Mad Dog Jones’s present preference for solitude had deteriorated him into something only a little more civilized than the New World wildlife.

Reluctantly, Clarissa admitted to herself that she was most fortunate. Of the Jamestown bachelors, she had selected the most refined, a mild-tempered husband she could control through pretty manners and a reproving gaze when needed.

Or rather, Modesty had selected Patrick for her. For this, Clarissa turned to give the waiting woman a most grateful hug. She avoided staring at her white coif, where tendrils should have been visible beneath its plain, banded edge. Modesty’s overskirt was gathered up, peasant style, around her waist. Her coarse stockings were dirty, and she wore pattens over her shoes.

Unconsciously, Clarissa’s hand went to her lace steinkirk, held in place by an heirloom ruby brooch. Patrick’s income, while not large, was at least guaranteed by the Company, so that she did not have to work the fields. His tutoring fees and whatever gratuities his parishioners could afford in the way of a chicken or a bushel of com were extra blessings.

Blessings? Egad, now she was sounding like her Bible-spouting husband.

“Come on inside out of the heat,” Modesty was saying. "A tumbler of spring water should cool yewr calluses.”

Clarissa had to smile. She picked up her long, full, trained skirt and followed her inside. “My backside is getting callu—" She broke off when she realized Patrick was regarding her with intent interest. His full lips, which should have belonged to a hedonist, twitched.

Fortunately, at that moment Modesty’s husband entered the cabin, his musket in hand. Perspiration sheened his sun-baked face and dampened his shirt. His glowering scan took them in.

Clarissa had to fight back a shiver. To extract herself from his view, she swiftly seated herself in a ladder-back chair in the corner and became inordinately occupied with stripping off her gloves.

The cleanly kept room, bright with mid-morning sunlight streaming through the open shutters, was as scarce in furnishings as her own. Wildflowers, whose names she wasn’t familiar with, sat in a gray crock painted with some sort of whimsical creatures.

Mad Dog tossed his straw hat on a peg and wiped his forearm across his sweaty forehead. "Well met, Reverend Dartmouth."

"Since we art neighbors," Patrick said easily, removing his felt sugarloaf hat, “we have come to call.”

Modesty's husband propped his musket against the fireplace and took a clay pipe from the pipe box. Lighting the pipe, he said, "I would hardly call eight miles a neighborly distance.”

Undaunted, Patrick took a seat at one end of the settle and draped his arm across its back. "Aye, that is true. I’ve come with special purpose.”

Modesty poured water from a pitcher banded with blue figures. Sweat stains formed half moons beneath her underarms. “A preacher with a purpose.” She brought tumblers of water for Clarissa and Patrick and passed a third to her husband. “I should have known.”

He accepted the tumbler, and a brief look passed between the husband and wife that Clarissa couldn’t read.

Then he said, "Modesty tends to hold the Church in contempt. You know, that little misunderstanding about witchcraft." He swigged down the water, and Clarissa watched with fascination as a stray droplet trickled down his thickly muscled neck. He set the tumbler on the mantel.

"I was not in favor of that unfortunate piece of business,” Patrick said.

"None of the contract brides believed it of you, Modesty," Clarissa said and really meant it. The woman might be devilish, delightfully so in fact, but she certainly was not the Devil incarnate.

Modesty sat on the stool and clasped her earth-smudged hands around her knees. Her eyes narrowed, and Clarissa knew it wasn’t from her usual squint when straining to make out something. Rancor glittered there. "No, but enough people were willing to believe I was a witch that Radcliff almost got by with burning me at the stake.”

"He’s still setting fire to the faggots of innocent victims." Mad Dog drew on the pipe’s long stem, then added, "At least his allies are."

Modesty looked at her husband sharply. "Wot do yew mean?"

Mad Dog exhaled a wreath of smoke that was lost in the dusty sunlight. “Word among the Potomacs is that Radcliff is intriguing with the Powhattan tribes. Stirring up trouble against the settlers on the colony’s frontier. The chief of the Monacans warns there may be an attack at the fall of the leaf—in autumn.”

Real fear tightened the muscles at the back of Clarissa’s neck. “Why would he do such a thing?"

Mad Dog shrugged shoulders that she couldn’t help but notice were almost as wide as an ell’s bolt. “If the Indians cause enough trouble with the settlers, Yeardley could find himself replaced. Radcliff is next in line. He wants the governorship."

Modesty frowned. "Why? The scoundrel is making a fortune in flesh trading.”

“A governorship is worth several fortunes. The colony is the rendezvous of a fortunate white few who grow rich through their privileged position.”

He sent Clarissa a reflective glance, then said, "These are not your English gentry but bourgeois plutocrats who work for their own special interests. Radcliff could even be knighted, as Yeardley was last year. All Radcliff must do is demonstrate that he is able to control the Indians and the governorship is his."

Listening to him talk, Clarissa was struck by the extraordinary texture of the man’s voice, a softly modulated baritone. Black velvet came to mind. She had expected—well, less cultivation.

"That is one of the reasons I came to see thee," Patrick said. "About the Indians. Word has it that thou hath been here since the year after the first colonists arrived, since 1608. And that thou walks freely among the Indians. That they trust thee."

Mad Dog said nothing. Just waited, one massive hand cradling the bowl of his pipe.

" ‘Tis my concern for the Indians that led my ministry here. I desire to teach them civility and to educate them that they might understand about God and learn the Gospel story. My hope, ultimately, is to build an Indian school at Henrico."

Mad Dog tapped his pipe bowl against the hearthstone. “You will have to kill their leader first. Itopatin, their werowance, is a puppet. His younger brother Opechancanough pulls the strings. Opechancanough hates the Christians.”

Patrick’s sandy brows furrowed. "Why is that?”

"When a child, he was taken by the Spanish to Spain, Mexico, and Santo Domingo. In those eight years he was indoctrinated by both the Jesuits and the Dominicans. Gradually, he came to see only hypocrisy. While in Havana, he escaped and made it back here to his homeland. He fiercely resists the introduction of English faith, language, or manners among his people."

"But how can we be held accountable for what the Spanish did?" Clarissa interjected. "Their Catholic—"

"I make no moral judgments, Goodwife Dartmouth. What is, is."

“Do you have no values, no—"

Modesty interrupted her with a hollow laugh. “Me good husband values expediency. That be his God."

“I see." Looking at nothing in particular, Patrick nodded, as if coming to a conclusion, then slapped his hands on his thighs. "Well, then, I suppose that brings me to the second reason for my visit. I take it thou hath a particular end in mind regarding thine affairs. Dost thou think this expediency that thou, uh, value might dovetail with serving as one of the two burgesses from our borough?”