Rapture in His Arms (8 page)

“I assure you that I’m not upset at all. Edwin must be lonely for Jacob. Benjamin fills a fatherly need in him.” Tyler smiled familiarly at Jillian and leaned against the back of the chair, making himself comfortable. He inclined his curly brown head in Dorcas’s direction. “However, I fear Benjamin spends too much time with his mother and not enough with me. She pampers him greatly.”

“Mr. Addison!” Dorcas cried, dismay clearly visible on her plain face. “If you wish Benjamin’s company, you may avail yourself of him at any time. But you’d be quite bothered to have him traipsing after you in the fields all day. You’d get no work done with a small child about.”

Tyler sent his wife a sharp-eyed look, which Jillian didn’t miss. “Do you contradict me, Mrs. Addison? I trust you do not. You coddle Benjamin so that he has yet to feel the rod, and you are familiar with what the Bible says about sparing the rod and spoiling the child.”

Dorcas’s face paled; her surge of defiance died away. She nervously fiddled with a strand of her blond hair and ceased fanning herself. “I—I am sorry, Mr. Addison. You are right, quite right. I do pamper the boy and monopolize his time. I shall try not to spare the rod with him any longer.”

“Aye, ’tis a sensible reply, madam.”

“I don’t mean to interfere,” Jillian broke in with a definite scowl on her face for Tyler, “but I think children should be pampered for as long as possible and not beaten. ’Tisn’t the rod which makes a child unspoiled, but fear of the adult who wields it.”

“My dear, I know you mean well,” came Tyler’s sugar-coated voice, “but you haven’t a child of your own, so I believe you should keep your comments to yourself.”

A thick silence hung in the air, broken only by the sound of Tyler’s spoon tapping against the side of his teacup. Jillian didn’t bother to reply. Tyler had every right to say what he did to her; Benjamin was his son, and she hadn’t a right to express her views on child-rearing. But he’d hurt her deeply to mention her childless state.

Sometimes she wondered how Dorcas could remain married to such a harsh man. Jillian didn’t know what was happening between these two people, but Dorcas was no longer the person she’d been before her marriage to Tyler. She’d known Dorcas all her life, and Dorcas had always been friendly and outgoing, but since her marriage to Tyler Addison some six years past, Dorcas no longer smiled as often, and sometimes the woman appeared downright frightened.

Jillian knew that Tyler could be overbearing. When he’d courted Jillian for a brief time before her own marriage, Tyler gave every indication of being a forceful and dominant man—two qualities that in another man might be admirable, but somehow Tyler appeared brutish. Jillian remembered when he’d asked to marry her and she refused him, telling him that she was going to marry Edwin Cameron. Tyler hadn’t taken the rejection well—in her mind’s eye she still saw his red face, his cheeks puffed out in anger as he berated her for being a silly goose by marrying a man old enough to be her grandfather. But her mind had been made up; in fact she’d never considered marrying Tyler anyway. Shortly after her marriage to Edwin, Jillian received an invitation to the wedding of her friend Dorcas to Tyler. Though Jillian had no clear indication that Dorcas was unhappy with Tyler—since Dorcas never told her, and Jillian would never have dared delve into Dorcas’s marriage—she sometimes wondered if all was well in the Addison household.

“Jillian, my dear, has your husband been ill of late?” Dorcas’s question finally broke the silence, her voice sounding thin and strained. “He truly doesn’t look well.”

“Has Edwin been unwell?” Tyler piped up. His blue eyes narrowed a bit and glowed with alertness.

“Edwin says he’s fine, but I’m worried about him,” Jillian confided to him, and clasped her hands together. “I know I shouldn’t say anything about his health to anyone, but I fear something is horribly wrong with him.”

“Has he seen the doctor in Jamestown?” asked Dorcas.

“Nay, nay, he refuses.”

“I don’t blame him. All doctors are quacks,” asserted Tyler.

“I’ve tried to keep him calm,” Jillian admitted. “Whenever he gets upset, his temperature rises and I fear a spell shall overcome him. With this unpleasant talk about Indians and Mr. Nathaniel Bacon, Edwin becomes overheated on the issue. So, I try not to speak to him about Mr. Bacon, whom he believes is a rabble-rouser and more upset with Governor Berkeley over the loss of his beaver trade than the Indian attacks.”

“Aye, Edwin is right,” Tyler replied knowingly, as if he personally had the governor’s ear on the subject. “I spoke to Governor Berkeley’s aide just last week. Bacon is jealous that the governor favors his friends. Though the people clamor for a leader against the Indians, Berkeley doesn’t feel Bacon is qualified to lead a militia and the governor fears an uprising of the colony. Many people are eager to oust Berkeley.”

Jillian hadn’t heard about the possibility that the colony might oust Berkeley, who was a close friend of Edwin’s. “Please don’t tell Edwin anything about this distressing news,” she begged.

Benjamin toddled into the room just then and grabbed Jillian’s hand. “Come see the ship on the river, Auntie Jillian. You, too, Mama.” He took his mother’s proffered hand, and the two women, with the child between them, walked onto the porch to join Edwin. Tyler, however, was slow to follow. He watched the happy group from the window where he could openly feast upon Jillian’s beauty without being blatantly obvious. God, but he wanted that woman! He’d wanted her for years, and had it not been for Jillian’s marrying Edwin Cameron, Tyler felt certain that she’d be his wife right now and not Dorcas. He’d only married Dorcas because she and Jillian had always been friends, and he thought to keep Jillian in his life because of the closeness between them.

For a long time now, Tyler had lived in the hope that Edwin would sicken and die. Then Jillian would be a widow, a wealthy widow, because Cameron’s Hundred would belong solely to her, now that Jacob Cameron had died. From where he stood, Tyler thoroughly examined Edwin. Truly, Edwin looked unwell. Never had Tyler seen the man so thin, his complexion so pale and pasty. Tyler wondered what disease was responsible for Edwin’s wasting away. From the look of the man, he didn’t have much time left.

And then Jillian would be free. Tyler greedily rubbed his hands together. Cameron’s Hundred, something which he’d coveted for years and offered to buy from Edwin and been refused on more than one occasion, would pass to Jillian. Finally Tyler would have the woman and the plantation, he’d make certain of that. Just one person barred his way to happiness—Dorcas, his wife.

“Miserable bitch,” he mouthed lowly, detesting the very sight of her. He’d married her hoping that something of Jillian would be in her since the two women were such good friends. But he’d soon discovered that Dorcas and Jillian were nothing alike. Granted, Jillian was serious and moralistic, but she was incredibly beautiful. Dorcas was plain, too serious, and too much of a moralist for his taste. If she’d been even pretty, maybe he’d have gotten another child by her. As it was, Benjamin was their only child and likely to remain so. He no longer sought out his wife for sexual favors—she’d hated his lovemaking from the very start and he’d hated touching her. But he was a lusty man and not about to be denied sex. Each night a comely slave girl came to him, and she liked his prowess in bed. He wondered if Jillian would.

“Easy, easy,” he advised himself. “Mustn’t get too far ahead of the game.” The only way for Jillian to come to his bed was to make her his wife. But how? Dorcas, for all her plainness and lack of spirit, was in perfect health. Illness was out of the question, so the only way to be well rid of her would be an accidental death. Her untimely death must happen soon—before Edwin died. Then no one would wonder at the coincidence; no one would ever suspect that her death was anything but a tragic accident or point a finger at him.

Just seeing Jillian, standing there on the porch with her lovely face turned to the river, the high swell of her breasts and the small waist which he longed to embrace, was enough to cause the wheels in his mind to start spinning.

Benjamin’s childish voice diverted Tyler’s thoughts for the moment. “Come down to the water with me, Mama!” cried Benjamin, who had taken off his boots and now excitedly ran barefoot through the grass. “I want to go wading.”

“Oh, no, Benjie, mama can’t. You know the water frightens mama,” Dorcas protested. “What if I fall? I can’t swim, sweetheart.”

“I’ll take him,” Jillian volunteered, and in an instant she’d pulled off her own shoes and stockings and ran after the small boy, both of them giggling and shouting in their play.

Edwin and Dorcas were laughing merrily when Tyler joined them on the porch. He felt light of heart suddenly, so wonderful that he even placed an arm around his wife’s slim shoulders. Dorcas gasped in surprise and Tyler smiled at her. “Benjamin and Jillian make a lovely picture, as if they belong together. Don’t you agree, Mrs. Addison?”

“Er, yes, they do,” replied Dorcas, who stiffened beneath her husband’s arm. Tyler laughed, almost as if he hadn’t a care in the world, and if truth be known, he had only one thing to dwell upon. Finally, he knew how to end Dorcas’s life. He wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before.

“So, lad, what do you think of Goldenrod?” Edwin rubbed a gentle hand over the mane of the butternut-colored stallion and spoke to Donovan. “His sire was the best piece of horseflesh to be bred in the colony. ’Tis lucky happenstance that Governor Berkeley wished to sell him and thought that I might be interested. I’d like to race Goldenrod in one of the local races. ’Twould give me great pleasure to finally beat Tyler Addison.”

Donovan critically examined Edwin’s newest purchase and could find no flaw. He saw the stallion was approximately eighteen hands tall, strong of limb, and alert of eye. He’d spent a number of years working with Mortimer’s horses and knew superb horseflesh when he saw it. Goldenrod was clearly superb, every powerfully muscled inch of him. Donovan didn’t know anything about Tyler Addison’s horses, but he sensed that Goldenrod would be an extremely difficult horse to beat in a race, though looks could be deceiving. “Aye, ’tis a fine horse, sir, but ye’ll have to try him out on the course.”

“Most definitely, lad. Would you care to put him through his paces for me?”

Donovan was taken aback by Edwin’s suggestion. He’d expected one of Edwin’s grooms to break in the horse, but he found he couldn’t resist the offer. Nodding his agreement, Donovan nimbly climbed onto Goldenrod’s broad back. Beneath his thighs, he felt the horse flex and, for just a moment, he wondered if the animal might balk. But the horse easily accepted him, an indication to Donovan that the stallion had been excellently trained.

He led the horse to the small race track which had been laid out a short distance behind the main house. Goldenrod cantered around the track for a few minutes. Donovan sensed that the horse was getting the feel of the ground and the man who controlled the reins before breaking out into a swift gallop at Donovan’s gentle urging. The horse easily accepted all of Donovan’s commands. Truly, this was a magnificent horse. Donovan envied whomever Edwin chose to groom and train him.

“I made a good bargain,” Edwin exclaimed, when Donovan halted beside the man and lowered himself from the horse minutes later.

“Aye, sir, he handles the bit well. Ye will have little trouble with him.” Donovan held out the reins to Edwin, but Edwin shook his head and waved them away.

“I’ll have no trouble with him at all, lad, for I’ve chosen the horse for you.”

Donovan thought he’d heard Edwin incorrectly. “I’m not understandin’ you, sir. I thought Goldenrod was to be trained for racin’.”

“Aye, he will be, but as my overseer, you do need a good horse to carry you across the plantation each day. So, he’s yours. But I expect you’ll train him well. I want a horse from Cameron’s Hundred to beat one of Tyler Addison’s mounts in the local race come fall.” A delighted smile turned up the corners of Edwin’s mouth.

The horse was for him? Donovan couldn’t believe it. Never had anyone given anything to him in his life. Donovan didn’t know how to react. Once again, Edwin Cameron’s kindness had caught him off guard. “Mr. Cameron—I—I—thank ye.”

Edwin pounded Donovan good-naturedly on the back. “You’re welcome, lad, more than welcome.” Suddenly Edwin’s smile disappeared, and he sobered. “Just remember to repay me when the day comes, though I might ask a great deal of you.”

“I’ll remember,” Donovan promised but was instantly suspicious and uneasy. He wondered just how Edwin Cameron would expect to be repaid for the horse. But Edwin lifted a hand in farewell and wandered off to the house without saying a further word.

Rubbing the horse’s mane, Donovan spoke to the animal. “So, me boy, ’tis friends we’re to be.” Goldenrod nickered softly and nudged him, causing Donovan to give a husky, delighted laugh. “Aye, finally I’ve found a friend.” The delight died in his eyes to be replaced by a flicker of desire when he noticed Jillian standing near the outside kitchen in conversation with the cook. God, but she looks pretty today, he thought and felt unable to pull his gaze away.

Jillian was dressed in a gown whose deep blue color suited her perfectly. Even with the white apron tied snugly around her small waist and stained with strawberry juice, and with her chestnut-tinted hair loosely tied back with a blue ribbon, Jillian was a feast for Donovan’s eyes. Over the last three weeks, she’d tutored him each day for an hour, an hour which he dearly cherished. It wasn’t only that she was teaching him his letters and was patient and kind. Donovan feared he was falling in love with his teacher, and the knowledge caused him great shame; there was Edwin Cameron to consider.

He wondered what kindly Edwin would say if he knew the rapturous delight he took in staring at the man’s wife every day, in mentally reliving the night on Bermuda when he’d held her in his arms and kissed her and felt her respond to the kiss. No doubt Edwin wouldn’t be too quick to give him a horse and would stop the tutoring sessions if he knew how much Donovan fantasized about making love to Jillian.