My Savage Heart (The MacQuaid Brothers) (17 page)

“You’re damn right I did.” He jerked her hand up pushing it into his lap, rubbing her palm over himself, laughing at her struggles to pull away. “And tonight I shall have one.”

He was still laughing when Caroline gathered up her skirts and ran from the parlor.

“What’s wrong with you? That water is hot,” Sadayi warned as Caroline stuck her hand into the laundry kettle. It scalded, and she pulled her hand out quickly, though she almost welcomed the pain.

“I suppose I should use a stick to remove the linens,” she said with a shake of her head.

The rest of the day passed too quickly. Tea was an abomination. Robert refused her request to take her refreshment upstairs with Mary.

“You’re up there all the time. Today, you stay with me.”

So she did. Doing her best to ignore his lewd expressions and suggestive remarks. But she couldn’t overlook his statement when she excused herself from the table. “Tonight, girl,” was all he said.

“You seem upset.”

“What? No, I’m fine. Perhaps a bit tired.” Caroline forced a smile and laid down her sewing. She’d spent the evening in Mary’s room, but it was getting late. And if Robert did manage to make it up the stairs, she didn’t want him coming here looking for her.

She would be ready for him.

“I’ll see you in the morning.” Caroline leaned down to kiss Mary’s wan cheek, but before she could straighten up, the other woman caught hold of her arm.

“What happened to your hand? It looks burned.”

“I wasn’t thinking and stuck it in the wash water.” Caroline shook her head. “It was foolish of me.”

But then not the only foolish thing she’d done since her arrival in the New World, Caroline thought as she entered her room. Mary had admonished her to rub butter on her palm, but Caroline couldn’t bring herself to go downstairs.

She stripped from her gown, trying not to feel like a sacrificial virgin. For one thing, she reminded herself, she wasn’t one, sacrificed or not. For another, as much as she loathed the thought of Robert touching her, it was necessary that he did. She kept on her shift, wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and blew out the candle. Once in bed, she lay stiff and still. Her eyes shut, she listened. Through the closed window came the distant sound of a solitary wolf crying into the darkness. She ignored it, concentrating instead on any noise from inside the house.

When she heard him, Caroline couldn’t stop the tears from coming, but she scrubbed at her face. “For the baby,” she whispered to herself over and over... like a litany. “For the baby.”

His progress was slow; and when he shoved open the door, Caroline realized it was more than the crutch that made it so. The smell of whiskey preceded him into the room.

“Light a candle, girl. I can’t see a damn thing.”

He was difficult to understand because the drink slurred his words, but Caroline grasped his meaning easily enough. Having deliberately doused the candle earlier, she now relit the wick. But she couldn’t make herself look at him. Not until he’d stood for long minutes looming over the bed.

As soon as she glanced up, he laughed, a sound that sent gooseflesh crawling over her skin. Then he dropped the crutch. It crashed onto the bare floor as he threw himself across the bed.

His weight was oppressive, his smell overpowering. Caroline turned her head away only to have his fingers dig into her cheek and twist her back. She nearly gagged when his open mouth descended on her. He pried open her jaw and his thick, foul-tasting tongue filled her.

For the baby. For the baby.

When he lifted his head he was breathing heavily... and Caroline bit her bottom lip to keep from screaming. But the sound echoed in her head as he grabbed hold of her shift’s neckline and yanked.

He groped and he squeezed, and all the while he talked. Slurred, silly words about how he would please her, and what a virile man he was. There was more, but Caroline blocked it out. She no longer thought of her child and the sacrifice she was making for its legitimacy.

She no longer thought at all.

Caroline registered what he was doing as if it happened to another. His fumbling attempts to open the flap on his breeches. The way he jerked up her shift. And still the overwhelming weight of his body.

“Damn it, girl, do something!”

The angered intensity of his words brought Caroline back to reality with a thud. She suddenly realized that the pain she’d expected... the pain of his entry... had yet to occur.

With an animal-like growl he rolled off her. His movements jerky, he grabbed his shriveled manhood, pulling and squeezing the flaccid flesh. The sounds he made disgusted her, as did the spittle drooling from his mouth. But it wasn’t until he glanced up, his eyes meeting hers that she understood the significance of his dysfunction.

The blow came so quickly, Caroline had no time to prepare herself. Pain exploded along the side of her face, and she tasted her own blood. Before she could move, he hit her again.

“Damn your uppity ways,” he yelled. “See what you’ve done!”

But Caroline could see nothing through the red haze of suffering. She raised her arms, deflecting his next blow, which only enraged him. He couldn’t seem to coordinate the stream of obscenities he spewed her way with striking her. And right now he appeared more prone to vent his anger with words.

Caroline rolled away from him as hard as she could. She fell from the bed, landing on the wood floor with a thud. But she ignored the agony in her hip as she scrambled to her feet. She sensed more than saw him lunge after her. He managed to catch a ragged edge of her shift, and Caroline heard the fabric rend. But it didn’t change her focus.

The top drawer.

The pulls were slippery, and Caroline realized dispassionately that it was her own blood that made them so. She yanked, pulling the drawer open as he hobbled toward her. Her hands were frantic now, digging through the cotton shifts and stockings. She almost gave up to run from the room when her fingers folded around the carved bone handle.

The expression on his face when she whipped around, the blade of Wolf’s knife pointed toward his bloated midsection was almost comedic. He managed to retrieve his crutch and stood braced against it now, his anger tempered with caution.

“Give me that knife, girl.”

“Get away from me.” It was heavy and her arm trembled with the effort to hold it steady.

“You’re going to go getting someone hurt with that thing.” His eyes narrowed.

“Get back.” Caroline gave a quick jab, and he did move, though not as fast and far as she wished. “Out of my room.”

“Now aren’t you forgetting this is my house, girl? And you’re my wife.”

“That doesn’t mean I shall take this... this...” Caroline blinked back the tears.

“Now I admit I might have been a little hard on you.” The knife seemed to have sobered him some.

“If you ever strike me again, I’ll kill you. I swear I will.”

“Now you’re going and talking like one of those savages. Is that where you got the knife? Did my boy give that thing to you?”

Yes, she wanted to scream at him. He gave me this and he gave me much more. But she didn’t. Because his next words left her nearly speechless.

“I guess that fancy English lawyer didn’t tell you everything.” His eyes narrowed. “There’s only one way Seven Pines or anything else will ever be yours.” He hobbled closer. “You must bear me a son.”

Blood pounded in Caroline’s head. “You... you already have sons.”

“Phew,” he snorted. “My first didn’t have sense enough to stay clear of a losing cause. The second hasn’t the stomach to run a business. And we both know what Wolf is.”

“Get out of here now.”

At first she thought he wasn’t going to comply. He stood still a moment looking at her, his hateful light eyes expressionless. Then he maneuvered himself around. Caroline stood her ground, watching until he disappeared through the doorway. Cautiously she crept forward, waiting till she heard his crutch on the stairs before shutting and locking the door.

She forced herself not to think as she placed the knife on the commode beside the candle. Then with unsteady hands she splashed water into the porcelain bowl. After stripping off the torn shift, she used it to clean her face. The water stung; and in the washbowl, it became a coppery red. Moving slowly to the dresser, she removed a clean shift and pulled it over her head, then collapsed onto the bed.

The sheets smelled of her husband. With her remaining strength, Caroline rose and stripped them. Afterward she lay on the bare mattress. The tears came then, hot and heavy, burning their way across her torn skin.

Pounding at the door woke her with a start. She moaned aloud as she reached for the knife only to let her hand fall when she heard Sadayi’s voice.

“Caroline. Caroline, are you all right?”

“Yes.” Her voice sounded strained. “Please stop all the noise.” It was morning. She could see light through the one eye she could slit open. “Don’t wake Mary.”

“She’s already awake,” Sadayi began when Caroline finally opened the door. When she saw Caroline, her eyes widened. “She sent me to find out why you didn’t come this morning,” she continued calmly. It wasn’t until she pushed through the door, closing and locking it that she put her arm around Caroline’s shoulders. “What happened to you?”

Caroline just shook her head and tried to move from the awkward embrace.

“It was the
inadu
?” When Caroline looked up questioningly Sadayi continued. “It means snake. It is the Cherokee name for Robert MacQuaid.”

Despite her discomfort, Caroline took some degree of pleasure in hearing her husband referred to that way. But she shook her head again and moved toward the chair. “I don’t want Mary to know. She has enough to—”

“She’s stronger than you think.” Sadayi pulled clean sheets from the wardrobe. “At the moment she’s a lot stronger than you.” She snapped the sheet across the bed.

“Just tell her I’m not feeling well,” Caroline whispered as Sadayi led her back to bed. Certainly no lie. She felt awful.

Caroline didn’t even realize the Cherokee woman had gone till she returned to the room. She carried a bucket of water and after emptying the bowl into the chamber pot, filled it again. From around her neck she took a leather pouch. Opening it, she produced a pinch of brown powder.

“What are you doing?”

“This will make the swelling go down,” Sadayi said as she stirred the herbs into the water.

The cool liquid soothed as she blotted it onto Caroline’s skin.

“Do you hurt anyplace else?”

“My hip.” Caroline didn’t protest as Sadayi lifted her shift. When she heard the older woman’s tsking sound, she closed her eyes. “I... I may be with child,” she said, and felt Sadayi’s stare on her. “Is there...? Do you think the baby is hurt?”

The Cherokee woman’s examination was brief. When she finished, she pulled the shift down and the blanket up.

“There is no blood. But I can help you purge the child from your body.”

“No.” Caroline’s arms folded protectively across her stomach. “Don’t hurt my child.”

Sadayi said nothing as she stirred something into a tin cup. “Drink,” she commanded, lifting Caroline’s shoulders.

“This won’t—”

She shook her head. “It will only make you stronger.”