Riverrun (45 page)

“Very well,” Hawkins said with a loud sigh. “The point is this, my friends: life has a great deal of advantages for those who know how to utilize them in the proper way. At this point, I believe it’s fair to estimate that the advantage, in our case, is primarily mine.” He paused, but Cass said nothing and Eric would only stare at the fire that sizzled as stray raindrops found their way down the chimney. “I’m glad you agree on that, at least,” he said then. “Well, I am more than willing to put a stop to this nonsense. After all, the war is over and I’m sure we’re all sick of fighting, of men dying, and things like that. You know I hold your debts, Cassandra, every last one of them. They are in the keeping of Mr. Jennings, a gentleman with whom you’ve had business before, as I recall.”

Cass nodded, in spite of herself. She clenched her fists impotently in her lap.

“I will forgive them.”

The announcement could not have startled them more than a thunderclap exploding directly over the house. Eric straightened sharply, and Cass found herself holding her breath. There was a condition, there had to be, and until she heard it she would not, could not make any move Hawkins might interpret as a degree of interest.

“You’re … very generous,” Eric said, his voice hoarse.

“Not at all,” Hawkins said coldly. “In return for forgiving the debts, and before Riverrun falls quite naturally into my hands, you must swear in the proper manner before a proper judge to leave Virginia. Leave the country. Forever.” He grinned. “It’s as simple as that.”

“What makes you think Riverrun would ‘fall quite naturally’ into your hands?” Cass demanded.

“Because you’ll not be able to raise enough money to survive the winter with the crop you will have left.”

“Have … left?” Eric said.

“My God, Eric,” Cass said, “how can you be so stupid? Don’t you see what you’re doing? Can’t you see what he’s trying to do to us?” She rose from the couch and walked stiffly to the hall door. “Bastard,” she said. “Get out of my house.”

“You’ll have time to think on it,” Hawkins said. “Plenty of time. Say … one week.” He pushed himself from his chair and snatched down the slicker with his hook. He looked to Eric. “One week, Mr. Martingale.”

“We’ll let you know.”

Hawkins’s smile broadened as he slipped the black material over his head and slapped on his hat. Then, with a metallic salute to both of them, he strode to the door, opened it, and put his back to the gusting autumn wind.

“You’re a bastard,” Cass spat at him.

Geoffrey’s smile vanished as he indicated with a nod Eric still staring at the fire. “You’d better listen to him, m’dear. He’ll want to save your life.”

“And you?”

Hawkins grinned, and the red patch over his eye caught the firelight like a pool of shimmering blood.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

S
he stood in front of Eric, her breasts heaving, her hands tight on her hips. She wanted to kick out at his legs, claw at his face, but could only stare at him bewilderedly and shake her head.

“What is the matter with you? Why didn’t you stand up to him?”

He sighed loudly, and did not answer.

“Eric, I’m talking to you!” She pointed at the door. “Why didn’t you throw him out?”

“Because,” he said, in a voice so low she had to lean forward to hear, “it’s no use, Cass. He’s right. He has all the cards, and all we have—”

“Is you and me, you fool!” she snapped. “My God, you can’t sit there and tell me you’ve come this far for nothing! If he had shown up on the day you came back, you would have killed him, and you would have laughed doing it. Eric, what’s happened to you?”

He looked up at her, and she almost gasped. The life that had set fire to his obsidian eyes was less than an ember now. It was as though some supernatural creature had crept into his bed one evening and sucked him dry of everything that made him Eric Martingale. This one here was not the man she loved, not the man she had kept in her heart for half a decade. Someone had stolen him, and replaced him with a mirror image that bore no resemblance to the one who had ridden with her through enemy lines and had, with battles boiling over nearby hills, made love to her as though each day were their last.

A thought struck her with the intensity of a lightning bolt, so sharply she nearly cried out and dropped to her knees: had she done this to him? Was it her fault? Had her protective, possessive mania for Riverrun driven him out of himself like this?

She had said: I will not have you or anyone else ruin what I have done these past three years. You … or anyone else. You.

She swayed, her hands dropping to her sides. In one moment of rage, in one swing of a pendulum she had denied him all that he had suffered—for her and for Riverrun.

“Get mad,” she muttered.

“What?” he said.

Her eyes widened. “I said get mad, damn it!”

“Cass, you don’t understand.”

“Oh, really?”

“No, you do not. Captain Hawkins—”

“He is not in the army anymore!”

“—knows the power of dealing with strength, Cassandra. He knows how to deploy his troops well enough to bring about the enemy’s downfall without firing a shot. He can do it, Cass, believe me he can do it. Forgiving the debts is only a ploy, a way to give us a sense of security we don’t really have. While we’re celebrating, he’ll come after us, no matter what he says. In any case, he’ll see to it we never bring the crop to the river for shipping, assuming we’re able to find a buyer for it. And you can be damned sure our sources in Meridine have mysteriously dried up.

“No, Cass, he has us. One way or the other he has us. And God damn it to hell, Cass, I’m tired of fighting! I have done nothing but run for the past four years, and I … am … fed up!”

I was right, Cass thought; I have done it to him. But what I have done, I can undo. I have to. Or Riverrun is lost.

She reached out and grabbed for his hands. He pulled them away, but his right moved too slowly. She took hold of the glove and yanked, unintentionally snapping it off the hand. Eric immediately whipped the hand behind his waist, glaring at her for a long moment before bringing it back into the firelight.

Cass felt tears stinging her eyes. The hand was perfectly formed; no crippling, no fingers missing. But from the wrist to the fingers ran several thick bands of ugly white. And in the center of the palm was a star-burst scar that seemed to her shocked mind a fanged mouth groping for air.

“Lambert,” he said evenly. “The day I threw him off my land, his whip did this, just as my knife gave him his scar. I would not let him see it again. When Sara healed it for me, I put on the glove to remind Lambert that he could not stop me from doing what I wanted. And … it almost worked.”

“What do you mean, almost?” she cried, wanting to take him by the shoulders and shake him until his bones shattered. “He didn’t stop you, Eric. You’re here, aren’t you? You’re back.”

He rose and stood in front of the fire. “I’m back. But you’re here now, Cass. This is your place, not mine. And I’m tired.”

Was it still only morning? she thought. My God, do I still have a full day ahead of me?

She moved to his side, took his arm, and turned him around. Then she grabbed his hand and held it up, forcing him to look at it. “This,” she said, “you got for Riverrun. For nothing, right? Isn’t that right, Eric? For nothing? My God, what did they do to you on that ship? What could they possibly have done to turn you into such a … such a spineless coward?”

And before she knew what she was doing, she pulled back her hand and slapped him as hard as she could. His head rocked back as the imprint of her palm reddened his cheek. She slapped him again, and his hand snared her wrist. Her free hand balled into a fist and she struck him on the chest, making him grunt. A demon possessed her, then, and she flailed at him, screaming the most vile imprecations her lips could fashion, kicking at him until he bellowed his own helplessness and rage. He grabbed her about the waist and lifted her, still kicking, and virtually ran with her to the stairs, to the second floor, and into his room. He threw her on the bed and with one fist grabbed hold of her shirt. The coarse material tore at the seams when he yanked with all his strength. Immediately, she leapt off the mattress but he blocked her path to the door. She spat at him, and he tore his own shirt to shreds trying to get it off, kicking his boots against the wall so hard they sounded like gunshots, ripping the trousers from his legs and advancing on her finally, naked, panting, his skin marked with the scars of what he had done for her.

Cass backed away, but her rage still flared. She looked for something to throw at him, found nothing, and headed for the window. He took hold of her hair, and she shrieked as she was dragged back toward the bed, was flung on it again and pinned down as he placed a palm to her stomach and stripped off her pants and boots as though they were nothing.

Then, surprisingly, he embraced her fiercely, rolling with her while she ground her breasts into his chest, her hips into his groin, sought to bite at his throat, his jaw, the lips that crushed hers and brought an ache to her teeth.

She took him as he had taken her, in a mindless passion that screamed at the pressure building within her. And when she came, she could only whimper. And when it was over, he rolled away from her, and the two of them lay unthinking, barely sated, while the rain outside slowed to a faint mist that lightened as the sun broke through a cloud and spilled weakly into the room.

T
hat afternoon she directed Amos to secure the curing sheds. When he looked at her puzzledly, she almost struck him, but spelled out point by point how he was to be sure there were six men around the tall buildings at all times, at all hours, all of them armed as though expecting an army. Then she ordered Simon to take the buckboard and drive into Meridine. He was to speak with their usual dealers to see what the orders would be, the asking and selling prices without an auction. After that, he was to spend some time on the wharf, listening, to discover just what the prevailing attitude toward Riverrun was and if it would be safe to ship their crops downriver if they had to.

In one respect, she knew Eric was right: Hawkins would never let either of them go scot free. Even if they were to accept his proposal and hand over the land and the house and all that went with it, he would wait a while to make matters seem concluded, then come after them, no matter where they went. He did not want Riverrun, he wanted her; and to get her now, he would have to kill Eric, which made the alternative almost seem far better. Because here, too, she suspected he was lying. He would not simply wait for legal justice to give him what would be his with the debts still unpaid. He would rather see Riverrun in ashes. Realizing this, she knew that he would not wait for the week to end before returning for his answer. The pressure would not stop, and the visits would most likely come daily: his smile; his bow; the mocking sweep of that blood-stained hook to remind her of the man he had once been and was no longer. As if she needed reminding.

I’m damned either way, Father, she thought; damned either way.

An hour before sunset, the clouds finally scattered ahead of a slowly rising wind. Water that clung to the trees spattered as though it were raining. The smell of rich, damp earth filled the air, and Cass wished she were a child again so she could believe that the world had been washed clean of its evils and was ready to start anew.

She looked in on David and saw that he was asleep. Rachel sat on a low stool beside the bed, a damp rag in her hand, a bucket at her side for when he fell into a coughing fit. Garner had not been to the house for several days, and probably would not come again if Hawkins decided to keep him away. Rachel looked at Cass and shrugged: no change. Too impatient to remain lying, and too weak to stand, he was a cauldron of contradiction trying to decide whether he should take the chance and perhaps die standing up, or spend the rest of the winter—or so it seemed—staring at the ceiling and tearing out his throat.

And that, too, should not have been, she thought as she returned downstairs; there was more to his ailment than the slow-healing leg and the chill in his lungs. By rights, once the infection had been defeated and the cleansing begun, he should have been at least spending some of his time sitting on the porch to catch the fresh air, or in the kitchen complaining to Melody about the soups she prepared. And by rights, she thought sadly, Melissa and Kevin and Chet and Cass’s family all should be alive, and she shouldn’t be here.

The night passed quietly; she slept alone.

M
ost of the following morning was spent in the fields, checking on Amos’s work with the tobacco and seeing that the late corn was marked quickly for picking. She would have remained there all day just to stay away from the house, but shortly before Rachel and two of the hands were to bring out the men’s lunch, Melody came racing across the furrows, her skirts tangled around her spindly legs, her arms flapping as though she were trying to fly. Cass, who was on her knees searching for a reason not to let this particular field lie fallow the following year—assuming that there would be a following year—rose and dried her hands on her legs, frowning, wondering what could have brought the girl out here at such a dead run. It couldn’t be Geoffrey, she thought; it was too soon, even for him.

Melody tripped, fell into Cass’s arms, and began babbling even before she had righted herself. Cass nearly burst into laughter as she tried to calm the girl, finally placing her hands on her hips and telling Melody sternly to take the pebbles from her mouth and speak clearly.

“Mrs. Roe,” the girl said, her head shaking back and forth like a dog with a wet rag, “you ain’t gonna believe this, you ain’t gonna believe this at all.”

“What, Melody?”

“It’s the Mister, Mrs. Roe. I think he done gone ’round.”

Cass frowned. “The mister? You mean, Mr. Vessler?” A cold hand encircled her heart, ready to squeeze.

“No, ma’am,” Melody said. “I means the other one. That Mr. Martingale.”

“Melody, you’re not making sense.” She took the girl’s arm and began walking quickly back toward the house. “Now tell me. Slowly, Melody, so I don’t need a translator.”