Sweet Savage Eden (29 page)

“This is creation,” Opechancanough told them. “The Powhatan were created by a giant hare, and he kept us prisoners for many years, while old women battled him for his prisoners. Finally he determined to let us be earth dwellers, and he gave us down to the soil and the forest.”

Women moved about with bowls of food. Father Steven seemed leery; Jamie knew that the Powhatan were good cooks. For their celebration they had made a tasty stew of rabbit meat. It was eaten with the fingers, with flat bread to sop up the juices.

The men danced, then naked women in blue paint with leaves about their loins joined the men. They sang and moved with erotic abandon. The men-at-arms enjoyed it thoroughly, Father Steven looked as if he would have apoplexy, and Hope moved back and forth to the music, her lips parted.

They stayed with the Powhatan that night, and for the two nights following. Father Steven tried to tell the Indians about Christ, and they were quick to tell him about their gods, Okeus and Ahone. The chief and Jamie spoke affectionately about Pocahontas, and Jamie reminded him that John Rolfe was back living in Virginia, and that he was assuring a future for the princess’s son. Jamie tried to explain the king, and Opechancanough told him about Powhatan’s funeral, about the temples of feathered mantles and war paint and copper and jars that had been prepared for his death.

When their stay came to an end, Jamie saw that Opechancanough was given a large supply of glass beads in radiant colors, two ivory-handled knives, and a blue
linen shirt with inserts of cloth of gold. The chief seemed very pleased, and insisted that Jamie return with numerous bags laden with dried fruits and grains.

It had gone well, Jamie thought. He and Opechancanough had made a vow of friendship, and he was certain that the Powhatan chief remembered and respected him. But something about the chief was crafty, and made Jamie wary.

They were longer coming back to the hundred, for they could not make the distance between Jamestown and the Carlyle Hundred by ship. When they came through the trail in the woods to the clearing of the fields and the palisades at last, Jamie was stunned to see that a ship lay out at harbor.

It was the
Sweet Eden
.

Jamie calculated swiftly. It was only the fifth of October. He had not expected the ship for at least another two weeks, but there she lay, in the harbor.

A thunder came to his head, and to his great irritation his palms went damp, and his fingers trembled where they locked around the bore of his musket.

He urged his mount forward, galloping hard over the fields to reach the dock. His heart thundered, his loins ached, and his mouth grew dry. He was about to see her again.

He was properly clad in a silk shirt, leather doublet, fawn breeches, and his high boots, for the Indians understood such things as the proprieties of English dress. He was even clean-shaven, for Hope had performed that barber’s function for him not with a razor but with the Powhatans’ method of a sharp, honed shell. He was clean, for the Powhatan bathed daily in the rivers, and he found it a very palatable custom. Still, he had not planned to meet her this way. He had wanted to see the house, to assure himself that it was ready. He had wanted to have time to think …

And to dream. But then, he had dreamed of her often, and always it had been the same. He had seen her lying as he had left her, disheveled and spent and curiously beautiful and also … 

Hurt.

“Milord, the ship is in!” someone called as he raced by the palisade. But that was evident. The
Sweet Eden
had already pulled to the deepwater dock. Sir William had come down in his absence, to greet his wife.

Racing pell-mell upon his mount, he felt his body heat and churn, and he gritted his teeth, swearing that he would behave the noble lord and husband and not wrench her into his arms to soothe his loneliness. He would not take her brusquely, or in anger.

But neither could he forget in those moments that her passions could be reached, that though she denied him in her heart, she could not do so with her body, and his appetites that day were sorely whetted and keen. He had missed her and she was his wife.

And perhaps she had missed
him
. Perhaps she would come down the dock and stare at him, and at long last there would be a radiant smile upon her face, and the spark in her eyes would blaze for him.

The horse’s hooves thundered beneath him, but already the passengers were beginning to disembark. He saw her; he could not miss the golden glow of her hair. She was dressed in soft blue, with a darker velvet cloak thrown over her shoulders and encompassing the length of her. She had seen Sir William, but she had not yet seen the rider racing toward the dock.

She looked over the hundred. He could see her pale, beautiful face, her sapphire eyes … her soft red lips.

Aye, he could see her face.

She stared upon the wooden palisade and the wood-and-thatch-and-daub houses with horror. Sir William spoke, and she tried to smile, but it was a lame effort.

“Jamie!”

It was Elizabeth, walking behind her, who called out with such joy. He reined in upon his horse and dismounted quickly. William saw him at last, and grinned.

Then all the others seemed to drift away, or perhaps in that moment, they simply didn’t matter at all. His wife stood before him after the long months apart, and they stared at one another.

She did not smile, and her eyes did not come alive. She was so pale that it worried him, and she was thin. Her flesh seemed nearly translucent, and she was even the more beautiful for it, ever more a crystal goddess. He ached to touch her. He ached to shake her and grab her down from the pedestal of her aloofness. He longed to strike her down to her knees and demand that she cease to hate him so.

He locked his jaw tightly, for what he wanted truly was to take her into his arms and hear her cry with joy, and that was not going to happen, either. He had not realized that a hum had filled his whole being, that words and other sounds had escaped him, that he had been aware of nothing but her, until he heard her voice again. He walked down the dock, his strides long. He reached her, and the sweet scent of her washed over him as she cast back her head to stare up into his eyes.

“Welcome to Carlyle Hundred, milady,” he said. He bent and would have kissed her, but she moved her face so that his lips brushed her cheek.

“Jamie!” Elizabeth cried. His eyes remained coldly on Jassy as Elizabeth stepped forward, hugging and kissing him warmly. “Elizabeth …” he kissed her back, and then he ignored his wife. Robert came up, shaking his head industriously, and then Lenore met him, cheerfully railing against him for having missed her wedding.

William spoke up, and Jamie introduced him around. By then Captain Hornby was on the dock, and Jamie applauded the time he made across the Atlantic.

“Fortuitous winds,” the captain said, pleased.

Then Jassy spoke softly but with an undercore of bitterness that startled him.

“It was a very long and horrible trip.”

Some agony touched her beautiful eyes, but then it was gone.

“Come to the palisade and the house,” Jamie said. He reached for her hand, and she cringed. His temper snapped. “Come, Jassy, you will ride with me quickly to open your own door to your guests,” he said. “They will follow in the wagon.”

“No—” she began, but he did not allow that rebuttal. His good intention fell from him with the chill river of her disdain, and he caught her hand firmly and dragged her along. She struggled, but his grip was so firm that none could see. Halfway down the dock he paused, spinning her about and lifting her into his arms. Holding her so, in a grim silence, he hurried toward his horse. He set her firmly upon it and leapt up behind her.

She was trying to dismount from the creature already.

“Don’t!” He jerked her so that she sat still, and then his whisper fell against her neck. “I have done everything that I can think to do for you, madame. I have hired on your friends, I have given you clothing and jewels, and even here, in the wilderness, you will have servants aplenty. And still, madame, at every turn you attempt to humiliate me. May I warn you, madame, don’t ever, ever do it again!”

“If you would do anything for me,” she cried, “free me!”

“Free you?”

Her head lowered. “I—I hate this place. I cannot be your wife here. I cannot.”

He nudged the horse, swallowing down a bitter, bitter disappointment. His arms around her, he lifted the reins and guided the horse toward the palisade that meant so much to him.

“Jasmine, you will be my wife here. Tonight. I promise you.”

His heels touched the bay, and the lathered horse broke into another gallop, bringing them quickly onto the palisade, and their new home in the wilderness.

XII
   

T
he wind rushed over her face, the horse pounded its mighty legs beneath her, and Jassy could hear cheers all around her. But most of all she was aware of Jamie behind her—the hard, vibrant wall of his chest; the entrapment of his arms, warm and unyielding as they came around her to hold the reins. She felt absurdly giddy, as if she might pass out at any moment. She felt a rush of warmth within her, because he touched her. She didn’t want this … this gruesome place, and she didn’t want to sail again, not when infants died and were cast, tiny and pitiless, into the sea. Not when even sailors sickened and died, and weevils chewed into the food. Not when storms raged and buffeted a vessel until not even the screams of the passengers could challenge the moaning of the wind.

From the moment they had boarded the
Sweet Eden
, things had gone badly. A scream had brought Jassy down to the hold where she discovered Joan Tannen, the wife of one of Jamie’s men, in the midst of a cruel labor. A day later, Joan had borne a dead, blue-faced baby, swearing her loyalty to her husband and Jamie even then.

The wind howled; the rain slashed. Jassy divided her time among the sick children and Joan, trying not to leave her side for long. It did no good.

Two weeks after the baby had been cast into the sea, Joan had followed. She had bled to death, begging Jassy to give her husband the very last of her love.

She didn’t want to be a part of this place.…

There was nothing here, just the log palisade and the looming cannons that warned of further death, and the little houses made of wood and wattle and daub. Beyond that, beyond the fields, there seemed to be nothing but the endless forests. By night it would black, as dark as any true pit of hell.

She didn’t want to be with child. She didn’t want to bear a child, not here in the wilderness.

But even as she longed to escape the voyage and the land, she again felt her husband’s touch, the sweet dizziness; the rush of warmth encompassed her, and she lowered her head, feeling her body grow warm, for she was stunned to realize how she had missed him, how she had wanted to feel him beside her again.…

And how she had longed for the expertise of his intimate touch. Even if that touch had cast her into her present, frightening predicament, she longed for it. She had even lain awake at night aboard the wretched ship and thought that perhaps, had he been there, had she been able to turn to him and cry out her loss and her fear and her anguish, it might have been better. If he had been there to hold her and soothe her, to take her into his arms.

He had never taken her into his arms, not to be tender, or to gently soothe her, she reminded herself. And he probably never would, for she had seen the stark disappointment in his face when she had spoken on the dock, and even now she felt the harsh power of his anger.

They rode through the palisade and followed a trail through thatched-roof houses and structures that brought them to the largest of the buildings. Jamie reined in, leapt down to his feet, and reached for her. His eyes were dark and cold and fathomless. His face was more bronzed than ever, and he loomed taller than she had remembered, and when she placed her hands upon his shoulders while his hands wrapped around her waist,
she thought that he seemed more tightly muscled, more savagely and perfectly honed, than ever before.