Midnight Rose (48 page)

Ryan reached to pour himself another drink. He knew he was going to need it.

“Suh, I wish—”

“Yes?” Ryan glared at him then to communicate that enough was enough. He might have to tolerate his mother’s nagging, but he didn’t have to listen to his valet, for God’s sake.

Ebner withered. “Nothin’, suh. I’ll go tell Miz Victoria you’ll be along.”

Ryan continued to sit there scowling in his misery. He had called on Ermine three times in the past three weeks, but only to pacify his mother. He supposed he did have to get on with his life, but first had to find a way to cast aside the haunting memories. Yes, God, Erin had been a beauty, but more than that, he could not forget how they’d enjoyed each other, shared talk, humor. He’d liked being with her more than any woman he’d ever known. While passion was exciting between them, there were other moments as well, moments when he delighted in just being with her. But it was over, he reminded himself, and it was only torment to keep thinking about her.

The door opened, and he looked up, frowning, prepared to face his mother’s anger that he hadn’t answered her summons. But it was Ermine who breezed into the room. Stunning in a gown of red velvet, she came straight to him to twine her arms about his neck as he rose in polite greeting.

“So, here’s where you’ve been hiding,” she cooed, nuzzling his chin with her lips.

Tiny, petite, she was standing on tiptoe. The top of her head barely reached his shoulder. Keith, who like Ryan was tall, had once confided that diminutive women made him feel even more masculine, but Ryan experienced the opposite reaction. They made him feel clumsy, awkward. With Erin he’d felt comfortable, for she was tall, and when they embraced she had only to lift her lovely face to his, and…

He gave himself a mental shake, attempting to fling away the cobwebs that sought to hold him forever captive.

Ermine sensed his tension. “Is something wrong? Aren’t you glad to see me?” She sniffed, shuddered, and drew back. “Oh, Ryan, you’ve been drinking.”

“Of
course I’ve been drinking.” He laughed, settling back in his chair and lifting his glass. “That’s what a man usually does in his study at the end of the day…he drinks.”

“But”—she gave her golden curls a shake of protest—“you drink too much. Your mother says so. You didn’t even come out to greet me and my family, because you were in here drinking, and that upsets me.”

He frowned. Now he remembered what he’d tried to overlook in her before: she nagged, which reminded him of his mother. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

Petulantly, she dropped to his lap and declared, “No. I won’t go back out there without you.” She began to nuzzle his neck.

Ryan wondered which annoyed him the most: her little-girl whine or her nagging. He also wondered how anyone so pretty could be so unappealing at times. Yet, the way she was wrapping herself about him brought a stirring in his loins. It had been a long time since he’d had a woman. Right after Erin had left, he’d gone to see Corrisa, but wound up paying only for a sympathetic ear. The harsh reality was that he didn’t want anyone else but knew he damn well had to get over that.

Ermine surprised him suddenly by dropping her hand downward to caress. “You want me, don’t you, Ryan? You always have. Your mother wants us to set the wedding date tonight. That’s why she invited my grandparents, so we could make it all official with a family toast. And the sooner we do it, the better, because I want you, too, as I’ve never wanted any man…”

She kissed him then, with passion that surprised him. With her hand between his legs, her breasts rubbing against him, her tongue parting his lips, he felt himself grow hard. He gathered her tighter against him, yet, despite the surging desire, he was still assailed by the torturous reminder this was another woman he held, not the one who could turn his blood to liquid fire.

Ermine pulled back to say seductively, “If you’ll come out with me now and get all the formalities over, we can slip away later by ourselves. It’ll be so good, my darling. And you’ll forget all about that little trollop that cast such a spell. I’ll kiss you all over and make you crazy for me.”

She pressed her hot, moist lips against his, but he abruptly pushed her away. “Erin was no trollop, Ermine.”

Her laugh was mocking. “Oh? Then what do you call her? Whore? Harlot? It’s all the same, and I’ll make you forget her—”

He abruptly set her on her feet. “That’s enough, Ermine.”

“Oh, really?” She bristled with indignant anger. “I’ll have you know I’ve been embarrassed and humiliated by all of this, but I’ve tried not to say anything to you about it, because I agreed with your mother you had to have been under some kind of spell, and that whore,” she paused to emphasize, “just drove you crazy with her depraved lust. I can understand, and I can even forgive you, but there is a certain limit, Ryan, and I won’t have you defending her. Do you understand me?

“Now then,” she continued, satisfied that his silence was a sign of capitulation, “let’s forget this unfortunate scene and join our families to celebrate. I already have my wedding gown, you know, and Mother can get everything together in a short time. You need to go sign those papers your mother had drawn up, and I’d say we can get married in about three weeks.”

Ryan started laughing. Once he started, he couldn’t stop. He threw his head back and roared with amusement to think he could ever have been even remotely tempted to bind himself for life to such a shrew. More than that, he knew he was crazy to think he could ever marry any woman until the day he could truly forget the only one he’d ever loved.

Frightened by his bizarre behavior, Ermine ran out to fetch Victoria and tell her that her son had gone crazy.

Ebner, however, was standing outside, and he’d heard much of the conversation. Not because he was trying to, but because he had nowhere else to be for the moment. It just broke his heart to know his master was suffering so. Oh, Lord, how he wished he’d never had to obey Miss Victoria and tell Miss Erin that awful lie. He didn’t know what it all meant, but maybe she wouldn’t have gone away if he hadn’t done it. There was just so much he didn’t understand.

Eliza appeared then, and they exchanged wretched glances of shared misery before melting into the shadows as they heard Miss Victoria approach, footsteps clattering.

Ryan made no move, nor sound, as his mother unleashed her frustration. Ermine, she said, was convinced he was having a nervous breakdown. She and her family were leaving, and her father would have a doctor sent out as soon as they got back to Richmond. Ryan needed help, she said, for his humiliation over the actions of that whore had taken its toll.

Victoria raged on. “Ermine is a very understanding and sensible young woman. She wants for you the same as I do, for you to get hold of yourself and get on with your life.” She went to the bell cord and gave it an angry yank to summon Ebner. “I want you to go to bed now. I’ll have Eliza make you some tea, and you try to rest till the doctor gets here.”

Ryan still did not speak. He was standing at the window, staring out at the misty night. A fog had rolled in from the river, and a chilling wind was blowing, rattling the windowpanes.

Victoria interpreted his silence as evidence he was allowing her to take over. Maybe Ermine was right, and he was actually having a mental collapse, though she feared he just wasn’t getting over Erin as quickly as she’d hoped.

Annoyed that Ebner had not responded to her call, she hurried out to find him.

Ebner made sure Miss Victoria was gone before entering the study. “Mastah Ryan…”

Ryan did not respond.

“Mastah Ryan, I got to tell you somethin’, and I don’t want your momma to hear it.”

At that, Ryan turned to look at him with lackluster eyes. “Go on.”

Ebner took a deep breath, mustering his courage before whispering, “There’s a rose at the grave.”

Ryan blinked. At first, not understanding.

“A rose,” Ebner repeated. “At Miz Henrietta’s grave.”

Ryan came to life then. His mother had said she thought Erin’s signal to meet her lover in the labyrinth had been the placing of a rose at his grandmother’s grave. He wasn’t sure what it meant now, in the dead of winter, but, by God, he intended to find out.

Opening the French doors, he bolted across the terrace and leaped to the ground. He could barely find his way across the lawn as the fog swirled about him, absorbing him into the night.

At last, he groped and found the entrance to the maze. He only hoped he could remember the way himself, for it had been so long since he’d gone inside.

Then, just around the first corner, he saw the glow of torchlight and knew with a jolt it wouldn’t be necessary to go all the way in. Whoever was there, whoever had left the signal, was already waiting.

He turned, only to be slammed with bewilderment to see Eliza standing there, holding the torch aloft. Beside her was Annie. And, as he wondered what it meant, Ebner appeared, out of breath from trying to keep up, to take his place beside them.

“Mastah Ryan,” Eliza began bravely, for it seemed she’d been preparing herself for this moment a long, long time—no matter the consequences.

“Mastah Ryan, there’s somethin’ you gotta know.”

Chapter Thirty

Erin had happily spent so much time with Captain O’Grady and his crew that she hadn’t cultivated any lasting friendships with the other passengers. Accordingly, when the
Freedom
reached Liverpool, there were only perfunctory farewells exchanged as the others disembarked.

Captain O’Grady had not wanted to pry into Erin’s personal life, nor her reasons for going to Sierra Leone. Yet curiosity got the better of him after so many weeks spent together, and when they left England, he began to ask subtle questions. He was frankly puzzled as to why a beautiful young woman was traveling to such a distant port alone.

Though at first she’d been repulsed by his admission of previous involvement in slave smuggling, Erin was gradually able to forgive, as his deep regret was so painfully obvious. Her feelings of aversion yielded to a close friendship. And, as a result, she was finally able to confide her own haunting past.

He shared her pain, and tears glimmered in his sea-gray eyes. “But Sierra Leone is no place for you,” he declared, anger taking over. “No matter what your dastardly husband did, you’re no slave. You could have stayed in Philadelphia and been safe.”

“Probably, but my mother couldn’t.”

“She doesn’t belong there, either. It’s primarily for blacks captured from slave ships. Not that it’s all that primitive. Aye, there’s a good settlement growing there, to be sure. Some of the liberated Africans have become traders, and then there are priests and doctors and lawyers. It’s not uncivilized, by any means, but I must say it would take a lot of adjusting for a genteel lady to call it her home.”

With a bitter smile, Erin pointed out, “I don’t think it’d be hard at all, Captain, if she had nowhere else to call home.”

At last they were sailing off the coast of Africa. Captain O’Grady took time to point out to Erin the different regions they passed—Morocco, the western Sahara, and Mauritania. Dense jungles blanketed the coastal plains, with miles of virgin forest, humid and thick with magnificent trees and precious woods. Beyond was a secondary forest with mangrove swamps and bird-swarming marshes. Then the plains seemed to rapidly rise to form the huge plateau which stretched on into the interior.

They passed Cape Verde, with its smooth green hills, its long strip of shimmering sand, and its dangerously concealed Almadia Reef. Captain O’Grady said they were passing the area known as Senegal. Next would be Guinea, and soon their destination of Sierra Leone.

Erin stood at the ship’s railing to experience the thick shroud of muffling heat, the density of seething vegetation. Also drifting to greet her was the stench of dead crabs lying in the mud at mouths of rivers and decaying coconuts half buried in the sand by natives trying to rot the fiber of the hard shell free.

Her heart began to pound with excitement as they sailed on up the mouth of the Sierra Leone River, framed by the vision of mountains darkly rising in an arc beyond the bay. Now and then fork lightning slashed high above the shadowed waters as thunder rumbled among the towering peaks.

Captain O’Grady told her, “When this part of the world was discovered by the Portuguese, they thought the thunder sounded like a lion roaring, so they named it ‘Sierra Leone,’ which means ‘Lion Mountain.’”

“Beautiful,” Erin murmured reverently. “Everything about it is beautiful.”

He gave a soft chuckle. “Not everything, lassie. Some of the stories are real ugly. Like the famous outbreak of ‘human leopards’ just before the turn of the century that took place in the high country. Natives got dressed up in real leopard skins and went around dismembering victims—or eating them.”

“Cannibalism?” She shuddered.

“Not really. The purpose was for their group to gain strength, so it was said. Even today, one tribe will blame such a ritual on another tribe, the reason being it’s the worst thing you can say about anybody around here. It’s also said half the shipboard slave revolts were caused by the natives thinking they were being taken over the sea to be eaten.”

Erin, who had heard of many legends also, offered one in return. “Africans who’ve never seen a white man think they’re a kind of sea monster, since they come from over the horizon in big ships, where they don’t believe there is any land.”