Sweet Release (31 page)

“What’s this?” bellowed Master Crichton, glaring first at Carter, then his son.

“It’s a misunderstanding, I assure you, Father.” The muscle in Geoffrey’s jaw twitched.

Cassie knew Geoffrey was beyond fury. He’d been bested twice today.

“Yes, a misunderstanding. That’s what it is, I’m sure,” Carter said, his voice saying just the opposite.

“Come, Miss Blakewell. I believe Master Crichton and his son have a few matters to discuss.” Master Carter took her by the arm and led her toward the dancing.

“A detestable boy, that one. Your father shouldn’t leave you to handle such things yourself. It is high time you got yourself a husband, young lady, someone to protect you and look after your interests.”

“Yes, of course,” Cassie said, only half listening, giddy with relief.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Is aught amiss, Cassie, dear?” Lucy fluttered her tiny oval fan, her eyes glittering with excitement.

“Nay, Lucy. Everything is wonderful, simply wonderful.”

Geoffrey swallowed the last of the Madeira and threw the bottle into the fireplace, pleased by the sound of shattering glass. That bastard Landon had run to his father and told him everything. Even Catherine had known. There was nothing Geoffrey could do about it, of course. The Carters were untouchable. His father practically worshiped King Carter’s shite and would do nothing to displease him.

And Catherine . . . Geoffrey had seen it in her eyes. Anger. Hatred. More than anything—more than his father’s threats or the snobbish, accusing look Carter had leveled at him—the loathing in her eyes tormented him. He loved her. He’d always loved her. Didn’t she understand? He was trying to protect her.

Cole Braden might wear gallantry the way a priest wore black, but it was just a disguise. The man was nothing more than a lying convict, a man who sought to steal from his betters. He’d obviously been able to win Cassie’s sympathy with his tale of woe, and now Virginia’s matrons were prattling on about him as if he were a missing prince of England. But Geoffrey saw through his game. They were not really so different, he and Cole Braden. Each wanted something, and was willing to do anything to get it.

But Geoffrey had earned it all by the privilege of his birth. Cole Braden was nothing.

It was nearly dawn. Rising unsteadily from an overstuffed chair, Geoffrey walked to his bed and collapsed into its softness. The musky smell of sex drifted up from his blankets, reminding him of the servant girl he’d deflowered hours earlier. She’d been worth the effort, that one. He felt his loins tighten and found himself wishing he’d spent more time inside her, less time arguing with his father.

The old man had hollered and strutted until Geoffrey was certain his heart would give out. At least he’d hoped it would. The damn hypocrite. Had his plan succeeded, his father would have praised him for it. But appearances were everything. It mattered not one whit what he did, so long as he did not get caught and besmirch the family name. It was a lesson his father had beaten into him since he’d grown old enough to wear breeches.

He had another plan, and this one would not fail. Though Henry had not been successful yet, it was only a matter of time. Accidents happened every day. With freedom and fear as his incentives, Henry promised he’d get the job done. Geoffrey simply had to be patient.

Chapter Twenty

Cassie carried the bundle of fresh linens toward Jamie’s room, where Nettie was busy airing the bedding. In the week since they’d returned from Crichton Hall, it had rained almost continually, and Cassie was determined to take advantage of the sunshine while it lasted. Every window in the house had been thrown open, and the sound of children’s laughter rose from the courtyard below. No doubt they were already covered head to toe with mud.

“Here’s the last of it.” She handed the linens to Nettie and moved on toward her own room, trying not to look into her father’s study as she passed.

Alec had been in there all morning reviewing her father’s books in an effort, he said, to help. Why she had decided to let him help, she didn’t know. She was as adept at ciphering as any man and knew a great deal more about running a tobacco farm than Alec ever would. She’d told him so, only to watch him turn his back and walk away angry.

They’d barely spoken these past days. When they had, the words they’d exchanged had been heated. When she came near he found reason to go elsewhere. When she smiled at him he looked away. When she spoke to him he replied with polite indifference. It seemed a thousand years since he’d asked her to dance with him in the moonlight. What had happened to the affection they’d shared so openly that night?

She knew he did not approve of her running the estate.

“It is not right for a man to hide behind his own daughter,” he’d said. “He’s forced you to commit forgery and worse, while denying you the joy of a husband and children. Damn his pride! It ought to be one of your father’s peers carrying the burden of this estate on his shoulders, not you.”

She’d flown into a rage then. “It is man’s disdain for woman that makes my task difficult, not the labor itself. What makes you think I want a husband? Perhaps I find more joy digging in the dirt than I would playing wife to some self-important boor who would view me as livestock to be kept and bred!”

“This is how you prefer it? Perhaps your father isn’t to blame. Perhaps his daughter’s unnatural ambitions have brought this about. Simply trying to prove a woman can do it, Cassie?” He’d walked away.

Why couldn’t he understand?

She spread the sweet-smelling sheets over her bed, trying once again to put aside the sadness that gnawed at her heart. It was undoubtedly better this way, she told herself, not for the first time. The less they spoke, the less likely she would be to slip in front of one of the servants and forget to call him Cole. Besides, Alec would be receiving his reply from London within the next six weeks by her estimation, and then he would sail out of her life forever. She had to find some way to quit loving him, and now was as good a time as any.

If only it didn’t hurt so much.

“Elly!”

It was Nan in the courtyard below. Evidently Elly was missing again.

“Eleanor!”

Elly had not become more tractable since accompanying Cassie to Crichton Hall, rather the reverse. Elly turned up her nose at every chore given her and disappeared for long periods of time without permission. She’d even begun to treat the other servants with disdain and refused to give Zach, who obviously loved her, the time of day.

“That child is going to bring us trouble,” Nettie had said only this morning when Elly had once again failed to appear at breakfast.

“Not when I’m done turnin’ her over my knee,” had been Nan’s reply.

As for Nettie, Cassie had also noticed a change. For the first time in years she seemed genuinely happy, humming while she worked and sharing unguarded smiles with all who passed. It wasn’t hard to figure out the reason. Ever since Daniel’s bout with the ague, Luke had been a regular visitor at her cabin, carrying firewood, repairing their clapboard roof, doing other chores a husband might do. Nettie fed him each night at her fire and had mended the shirt he’d torn repairing a fence. Daniel adored Luke and followed him about the plantation, chattering like a squirrel. Cassie had kept her observations to herself, sure Nettie would have shared her secret if she’d wanted to.

A child’s footsteps sounded on the wooden stairs, followed by the clickety-click of animal claws.

“Stop, you! No!” she heard Nettie cry.

Cassie ran to help, but it was too late.

Sitting in the middle of the newly made bed was Jamie. With him sat a very muddy Pirate, wagging his brown tail, a trail of paw prints running across the floor and up the white linen behind him. Nettie stood, arms akimbo, glaring at the boy with mock severity, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“What have I told you about bringing Pirate into the house, Benjamin Hamilton Blakewell?” Cassie scolded.

“Sorry,” Jamie muttered dolefully, knowing the use of his full Christian name meant he was in real trouble.

“And you, don’t you know that good dogs stay outdoors?” Eager for attention, the puppy leaped off the bed and jumped up onto Cassie’s skirts.

She patted its head and scratched it behind its floppy brown ears, struggling to maintain some semblance of anger. Soon the pup would be expecting a seat at the dinner table. “Now scoot along, both of you,” she said, trying to keep a stern tone to her voice.

Picking up the puppy, Jamie lugged it, hind paws dragging on the floor, into the hallway.

No sooner had he put Pirate down than the pup scampered up the hallway, first into Cassie’s bedroom, where it leaped onto her bed, leaving muddy stains on her clean sheets, then into her father’s study.

“Pirate, stop!” Cassie cried.

By the time she reached the study, all was in chaos. Nettie was chasing Jamie, who was chasing Pirate, who thought the entire thing a game and was now barking excitedly from beneath the desk. Alec stood in the center of the confusion, a ledger in one hand, a look of mild surprise on his face.

“Jamie, come here at once!” Cassie called, her words all but drowned out by Jamie’s giggles and Pirate’s yaps. She shrugged her shoulders apologetically at Alec, who gave her a lopsided grin, his blue eyes bright with amusement. Oh, how she had missed that smile these past several days. She smiled back, unable to stop the flush she felt slowly creeping into her cheeks. How did he manage to do that? With a glance, a word, a smile, he could set her heart aflutter, make her blush as if she were a silly girl of twelve in the throes of her first infatuation.

Breaking eye contact, Alec laid the ledger on the desk, reached down, and picked up Jamie with one arm, the squirming pup with the other.

“What have we here?” he asked, exaggerating the deepness of his rich baritone voice. “Why, it’s that dread buccaneer Jamie Blackbeard and his vicious hound Pirate. God save us all!”

“God save us all!” echoed Nettie, shaking her head and turning back toward the bedroom. They had thought themselves finished with the laundry.

“I’m sorry,” Cassie said, nervously smoothing her muddied skirts.

“No bother.” Alec walked through the doorway into the hall, plopping the puppy onto the floor beside him. “I welcome the interruption. It does a man good to stretch his legs now and again.” He flashed her another smile and, lifting Jamie onto his shoulders, bounded down the stairs and out the back door, Pirate at his heels.

By the time Cassie had gathered the newly muddied sheets for laundering and carried them outside, Alec and Jamie were embroiled in an imaginary swordfight, much to the delight of the other children, who gathered to watch.

“Stand down and prepare to be boarded, Blackbeard! You’ll not escape the noose this time!” Alec brandished a small stick as if it were a sword.

“You can’t catch me!” Jamie also wielded a stick. With a fierce cry that drew muffled laughter from Nan and old Charlie, Jamie attacked.

Alec neatly deflected the blow and began a counterattack, thrusting and parrying with exaggerated effort. “Hold your sword so the blade tilts upward. That’s the way,” he said, giving his opponent advice. “Now lunge forward. Ward off my thrust. That’s it.”

Cassie leaned against the porch railing, her arms full of linen, and watched. Leaping about barefoot on the cobblestones, his breeches moving over the shifting muscles of his thighs, his white cotton shirt open to reveal the dark curls of his chest, Alec looked like a pirate himself, and a very virile pirate at that. Try as she might, Cassie could not forget how soft those curls had been under her palms or how hard his thighs had felt when pressed against hers. If only...

No, it was best she had not lain with him. Aye, it was best this way, for Cassie knew with certainty that if he were to join his body with hers, she’d never be able to stop loving him.

“Avast, buccaneer! You have slain me!” Alec dropped theatrically to his knees. His hands pressed to the mortal wound in his abdomen, he groaned and then, to great applause, fell down dead. Holding his sword high in the air, Jamie stood triumphantly over the body of his vanquished enemy, while Pirate, excited by the noise and sure that he was the center of attention, barked and leaped in circles, stopping only to favor Alec’s face with several sloppy puppy kisses.

Alec roared back to life, lifted Jamie, and swung him about in the air, evoking playful screams from the children and laughter from the adults.

She wasn’t going to be the only one devastated when he returned to England, Cassie realized with a jolt. Jamie would miss him, too.

“That’s all for now, tadpole,” said Alec, putting the boy down and tousling his curls.

Cassie reached up to wipe wetness off her cheeks and realized with a start that she was crying. She turned and hastened across the courtyard. There was work to be done.

Alec studied the figures on the page before him, engrossed. He’d always known Cassie was a woman of surprising abilities, but he’d not been prepared for this. The clever ways she’d hit upon to shore up the estate’s finances, which could politely be described only as unfortunate, were quite impressive.

As far as Alec could tell, Abraham Blakewell had been entirely dependent upon tobacco for his earnings, planting com only for food. In good years he’d spent lavishly for a man of his means, buying books, horses, and gifts for his wife and daughter, often going into debt despite a large harvest. In bad years the debts had simply grown. Until Cassie had taken up her father’s duties. Though she tried to duplicate her father’s script when ciphering, her ledger entries were neater, steadier, and contained fewer corrections than his, and Alec had no trouble discerning exactly when she had begun keeping the books. The first thing she’d done was to eliminate unnecessary expenditures. Then she’d begun planting wheat, barley, and hemp, providing the estate with new sources of income, however modest. She’d also begun selling vast amounts of lumber to factors in Williamsburg who, in turn, had sold it to the navy. This, of course, had forced her to buy more slaves and bondsmen, as plowing fields, milling grain, and felling trees required many strong backs and able hands. Much of her profits thus far had been eaten up by these new expenses. In the end Alec was sure her strategy would pay off. By his calculations the estate, which had come perilously close to ruin, would be freed from debt in five to seven years, depending upon the tobacco harvest. If Blakewell’s Neck survived, Jamie would have only his sister to thank.