Lost Lady (22 page)

“Two days?” she asked, looking at Travis. “I have a lot to do before then.”

“Now, sweet,” Travis said. “Go to the kitchen and get some breakfast. We'll be along in a while. I want to talk to your mother.”

“Talk?” Regan said when they were alone, rubbing against him. “I certainly like our ‘conversations.' ”

He held her at arm's length, and his eyes were serious. “I meant it when I said I wanted to talk. I want to know who you are and what you were doing in your nightgown on that Liverpool dock the night I found you.”

“I'd really rather go into it some other time,” she said, as lightly as she could manage. “I have an awful lot of work to do.”

He pulled her close to him. “Listen to me. I know that what you've been through is painful. I've not pressed you since we left England, but I'm here now, and you're safe. I won't let anything harm you, and I want to know everything about you.”

It was some minutes before she could speak. Against her will, she began to remember that night when she'd met Travis and her life before that. For years she'd been free, had come to know other people, to see how they lived, and she could see how much of a prison her childhood had been.

“I grew up totally without freedom,” she began, at first without emotion, but as she thought of the way she'd been treated in her early life, she began to grow angry.

Travis never rushed her, only held her close to him, his arms and body keeping her safe, as she poured out her whole story. It was a long time before she got to that night when she'd overheard Farrell and her uncle conspiring together. He never said a word, but his arms tightened.

She continued her story, telling Travis how she felt about him, how he frightened her, but how she clung to him, wavering between her need to prove her own worth and wanting to hide behind his strength. She poured out all the terror she'd felt at his plantation, laughing somewhat at that scared little girl, afraid to give orders to her own servants.

She finished with the story of her leaving him, of the trail she'd left behind, of her tears when he didn't come after her.

“I could have helped you at home,” he said when she'd stopped talking. “But I knew you would have resented me. The day Margo came, the day you burned your hand, I could have killed Malvina.”

Twisting around, she looked at him. “I had no idea you knew about that.”

“I know most of what happens on my own plantation,” he said. “I just honestly didn't know how to help you. I knew you had to learn how to help yourself.”

“Are you always right, my dear lovely husband?” she asked, caressing his face.

“Always. And I hope you remember it and obey me in all things from now on.”

She gave him her sweetest smile. “I plan to fight you every inch of the way. Every time you give me an order I'll—.”

She broke off when he kissed her soundly, just before he pushed her from the bed.

“Get up, get dressed, and go see that Brandy has enough food for my breakfast.” A pillow landed on his face.

“Here I tell you I am massively wealthy and you don't even comment. Some men would like to get their hands on my money.”

Eyeing her naked form, he smiled slowly. “I'm looking at what I like my hands on. As for your money, you can pay for that circus you wanted, and what's left you can give to our children.”

“The circus
I
wanted,” she sputtered. “All that was your idea.”

“You wanted the courting.”

“Courting! That was the most heavy-handed, awkward, gaudy, inept courting I've ever seen! Any Englishman could do better.”

Lazily, Travis leaned back on a pillow. “I'm the one who had you coming to his room wearing a bit of transparent nothing, just begging me to make love to you, so maybe my courting wasn't so bad after all.”

Regan sputtered for a few more minutes before beginning to laugh as she dressed. “You are insufferable. Shall I serve your breakfast in bed, or would you prefer a private dining room?”

“Now there's a good wench. Try and keep that attitude. I think I'll eat in the kitchen; just be sure there's lots of it.”

Regan left, still laughing, and Travis wondered how he was going to have to pay for his last remarks. But whatever she did, life with her was going to be a joy. She was certainly worth all the pain he'd been through in the last few years.

Slowly, contentedly, he began to dress.

 

Most of the townspeople stopped by that day to congratulate Regan on her forthcoming marriage and to say goodbye to her, as they knew she'd be leaving very soon. Contrary to what Margo seemed to think, no one thought Travis was a fool. The women thought he was wonderfully romantic, and the men liked the way he went after what he wanted.

At midmorning, Regan was up to her ears in work. A maid was complaining about some odd-colored ink on a set of sheets, and everyone else seemed to be complaining also. Of maybe it was Regan's imagination caused by her sadness at leaving the big inn she and Brandy had built.

“You're sad, aren't you?” Travis asked, coming up behind her.

She still wasn't used to the keen perception of this man. She'd had no idea he was so aware of her needs and problems when she'd known him before, and now his sensitivity was startling.

“You'll feel better once you're at my house. What you need is a new challenge.”

“And what happens when I learn all there is to know about running a plantation?” she asked, turning toward him.

“Couldn't happen, because I come with the plantation and you'll never learn enough about me. Now, where's my daughter?”

“She's usually with Brandy at this time of day. I didn't check because I thought you were with her.” After a moment's thought, she smiled. “Where is the pony you bought her? Wherever it is, that's where she is.”

“I looked in the carriage house, but she isn't there, and Brandy hasn't seen her all morning.”

“Not even for breakfast?” she asked, frowning. “Travis!” she said in alarm.

“Wait a minute,” he soothed. “Don't get upset. She could have gone to a friend's house.”

“But she always tells me where she's going—always! It's the only way I can keep up with her while I'm working.”

“All right,” Travis said quietly. “You look through the inn, and I'll walk around town. We'll find her in minutes. Now go!” he said laughingly.

Regan's immediate thought was that perhaps Jennifer had a stomachache from yesterday's excitement and she had gone back to her bed, forgetting to tell anyone where she was going. Quietly, Regan walked through her bedroom and slowly opened her daughter's door. Expecting to see her daughter asleep in her bed, she did not at first understand the turmoil of the room. Clothes were strewn everywhere, drawers open, the bedclothes half on and half off, shoes scattered on the bed and floor.

“She's been packing!” Regan said aloud, relieved at the sight.

It was as she knelt to pick up a shoe that she saw the note on the pillow. Jennifer would not be returned unless the sum of fifty thousand dollars was placed at the foot of the old well south of town two days from now.

Regan's scream of anguish could be heard throughout the inn.

Brandy, her hands and apron covered with flour, was the first to reach Jennifer's room. With an arm around Regan's heaving shoulders, she led her to sit on the bed, taking the note from her.

Brandy looked up at the people standing in the doorway. “Someone find Travis,” she commanded. “And tell him to get here immediately.”

As Regan stood, Brandy caught her arm. “Where are you going?”

“I have to see how much money I have in the safe,” she said, dazed. “I know it's not enough. Do you think I can sell something in two days?”

“Regan, sit down and wait for Travis. He'll know how to get the money. Maybe he even has some with him.”

Regan didn't seem to be aware of what she was doing as she sat back down, clutching the ransom note and one of Jennifer's shoes.

Travis burst into the room moments later, and at the sight of him she jumped up and ran to him.

“Someone has taken my daughter!” she cried. “Do you have some money? Can you get fifty thousand dollars? Surely you can get that much.”

“Here, let me see the note,” he said, one arm firmly around her. He read it and reread it several times before looking up at the room.

“Travis,” Regan said. “What do we have to do to get the money?”

“I don't like this,” he said under his breath and turned to Brandy. “Have you been in the kitchen all morning?”

Brandy nodded.

“And you heard nothing? Did you see any strangers in the hall?” he asked, nodding toward the corridor that led to the kitchen and Regan's office.

“No one. Nothing unusual.”

“Go find everyone on the staff and bring them here instantly,” he commanded Brandy.

“Travis, please, we need to start getting the money.”

Travis sat down on the bed and drew Regan between his knees. “Listen to me. There's something wrong here. There are only two ways to enter your apartment, past Brandy in the kitchen or through the back door. Brandy and her cooks are always in that hall going from the kitchen to the pantry, and no one could have walked out with Jennifer without being seen. So that leaves the back door, which I know you always keep locked. It hasn't been broken, so Jennifer must have opened it from the inside.”

“But she wouldn't! She knows not to do that.”

“That's my point. She'd only open it to someone she knew and trusted, someone she knew was a friend. And now my second point, who knows you can get fifty thousand dollars? No one in town knows me, and until yesterday I didn't know you had any money. Fifty thousand means someone knows a great deal more than the average Scarlet Springs resident.”

“Farrell!” Regan gasped. “He knows better than I do how much money I have.”

At that moment Brandy returned with the staff members, all of them quiet, wide-eyed—and behind them was Farrell Batsford.

“Regan,” he said. “I just heard the awful news. Is there anything I can do?”

Travis brushed past him as he began to question the staff, asking if they'd seen anything at all unusual this morning, if they had seen Jennifer with anyone.

While they were thinking, remembering nothing, Travis grabbed a maid's hand.

“What is this on your fingers? Where did it come from?”

Stepping back, the girl looked frightened. “It's ink. It came off the sheets in number twelve.”

Expectantly, he turned to Regan.

“Margo's room,” she said heavily.

Without another word, he left the apartment through the back door and headed for the stables, Regan running after him. He was tossing a saddle onto a horse when she caught him.

“Where are you going?” she demanded. “Travis! We have to get the money!”

He paused long enough to touch her cheek. “Margo has Jennifer,” he said as he continued saddling the horse. “She knew we'd find the ink, and she knows I'll come after her. That's what she really wants. I don't believe she'll harm Jennifer.”

“Don't believe! Your whore has taken my daughter and—.”

He put his finger to her lips. “She is my daughter too, and if I have to give every acre I own to Margo, I'll get Jennifer back safely. Now I want you to stay here because I can handle this better alone.” He swung onto the horse.

“I'm just supposed to stay here and wait? And how do you know for sure where Margo is?”

“She always goes home,” he said grimly. “She always goes to where she can be near the memory of that damned father of hers.”

With that he reined away, applied a kick to the horse's side, and disappeared in a cloud of dust.

I
T WAS NIGHT, ALMOST DAWN THREE DAYS LATER, WHEN
Travis jerked his horse to a halt before Margo's door. It had taken several horses to carry him all the way at the pace he'd demanded of them.

Jumping down, he slammed into her house, knowing exactly where she'd be—in the library, sitting under the portrait of her father.

“It took you a little longer than I expected,” she said cheerfully as she greeted Travis. Her red hair was a mass of tangles about her shoulders, and there was a dark stain on her dressing gown.

“Where is she?”

“Oh, she's safe,” Margo laughed, holding up an empty whiskey glass. “Go and see for yourself. I rarely harm children. Then come back and join me for a drink.”

Travis took the stairs two at a time. At one point in his life he'd been a frequent visitor to the Jenkins house, and he knew his way around well. Now, searching for his daughter, he took no notice of the bare places on the walls where once a portrait had hung or an empty table where an ornament no longer stood.

He found Jennifer asleep in the bed he'd used when he was a boy. When he picked her up she opened her eyes, smiled, said “Daddy,” and went back to sleep. She and Margo must have traveled all night, as the dust on her face and clothes showed.

Carefully, he put her back down in the bed, kissed her, and went downstairs. It was time he and Margo talked.

Margo didn't even look up as he crossed the room and poured himself a glass of port. “Why?” she whispered. “Why didn't you marry me? After all those years we spent together. We rode together, swam naked together, made love. I always thought, and Daddy always thought—.”

Travis's explosion cut her off. “That's why!” he shouted. “That goddamned father of yours. There are only two people you ever loved: yourself and Ezra Jenkins.”

He paused to raise his glass in salute to the portrait over the fireplace. “You never saw it, but your father was the meanest, cheapest liar ever created. He'd steal pennies from a slave child. I never cared much what he did, but every day I could see you becoming more like him. Remember when you started charging the weavers for their broken shuttles?”

Margo looked up, a desperate expression on her face. “He wasn't like that. He was good and kind….”

Travis's snort stopped her. “He was good to you and no one else.”

“And I would have been good to you,” Margo said, pleading.

“No!” Travis snapped. “You would have hated me because I didn't cheat and steal from everybody around me. You would have seen that as weakness on my part.”

Margo kept her eyes on her drink. “But why her? Why a skinny little, washed-out English gutter rat? She couldn't even make a cup of tea.”

“You know she's no gutter rat, not when you demand fifty thousand dollars ransom of her.” Travis's eyes began to glaze over as he thought back to that time in England. “You should have seen her when I first saw her—dirty, scared, wearing a torn and ragged nightgown. But talking like the highest-born English lady. Every word, every syllable was so precise. Even crying, she talks like that.”

“You married her because of her damned uppity accent?” Margo spat angrily.

Travis smiled in a distant way. “I married her because of the way she looks at me. She makes me feel ten, no, twenty feet tall. I can do anything when she's around. And watching her grow has been a joy. She's changed herself from a frightened little girl into a woman.” His smile broadened. “And she's all mine.”

Margo's empty glass flew across the room, shattering on the wall behind Travis's head. “Do you think I'm going to sit here and listen to your ravings about another woman?”

Travis's face turned hard. “You don't have to listen to me at all. I'm going upstairs to get my daughter and take her home.” At the foot of the stairs he turned back toward her. “I know you well. I know it's because of what your father taught you that you tried this treacherous way of getting what you wanted. Because Jennifer is unharmed, I'm not pressing charges this time. But if you ever again….”

He stopped, his words trailing, and rubbed his eyes. Suddenly he was very sleepy, and as he mounted the stairs he looked like a drunken man.

 

Shortly after Travis left the inn, a bewildered Regan returned to her apartment. Farrell was waiting for her.

“Regan, please, you've got to tell me what's going on. Has someone harmed your daughter?”

“No,' she whispered. “I don't know. I can't tell.”

“Sit down,” he said, his arm around her, “and tell me everything.”

It didn't take but minutes before the story was out.

“And Travis left you here to suffer alone?” Farrell asked in astonishment. “You have no idea what is happening about your own daughter but trust him to get her from his ex-mistress?”

“Yes,” she said helplessly. “Travis said—.”

“And since when have you ever let another person run your life? Wouldn't you rather be with your daughter than here, knowing nothing?”

“Yes!” she said firmly, rising. “Of course I would.”

“Then let's go. We'll leave immediately.”

“We?”

“Yes,” Farrell said, taking her hand. “We're friends, and friends help each other in time of need.”

Only later, as they were in the buggy and headed south toward Travis's plantation, did Regan realize that she'd told no one where she was going. The thought left her quickly as she was too concerned for her daughter's safety.

They traveled for hours, the carriage much too slow for Regan's taste, and once she dozed, her head hitting the side of the buggy. She came awake abruptly when Farrell touched her arm. He was standing on the ground beside her; the carriage had stopped.

“Why are you stopping?” she demanded.

He pulled her from the seat to stand before him. “You need rest, and we need to talk.”

“Talk!” she gasped. “We can talk later, and I don't need any rest.” She tried to pull away from him, but he held her firmly.

“Regan, do you know how much I love you? Did you know that I was in love with you long ago in England? Your uncle offered me money and I took it, but I would have married you without the incentive of money. You were so sweet and innocent, so very lovely.”

In her distress Regan lost sight of the fact that she was alone with this man in a remote piece of woods.

Astonished, she pulled back from him. “Oh, for heaven's sake, Farrell! What have I ever done to make you think I'm stupid? You never loved me, never have, never will. All you want is my money, which you're not going to get, so why don't you be a good sport, go home to your pretty, poor house in England, and leave me alone?”

One minute she was standing, the next she was slammed against the carriage, sliding down, as Farrell's hand knocked her backward.

“How dare you speak to me like that?” he seethed. “My family comes from kings, while yours are mere merchants. That I have to lower myself to marry a woman like you, who knows more of ledgers than laces, is—.”

While he was speaking, Regan was regaining her wits. Much more important than her own problems with Farrell was her anxiety about her daughter. Still on her knees from the blow, she charged at him, using her head as a battering ram, and caught him directly between the legs.

Farrell doubled over in pain and gave Regan her chance to escape.

One glance at the buggy showed he'd unhitched the horses enough that it would take a long time to be able to use that means of escape. Pulling up her skirts, she started to run back toward the road, just in time to see a dilapidated old wagon disappearing around a curve. It took all her energy to catch the wagon.

An old man, his face bristled with gray whiskers, sat on the seat.

“There's a man chasing me,” she called up, running with the wagon.

“Should he catch you?” the old man said, obviously amused by the situation.

“He's trying to force me to marry him—for my money—but I want to marry an American.”

Patriotism won the man over. Without even slowing, he grabbed Regan's arm and hauled her into the wagon as if she weighed nothing. With another swift motion he pushed her to the back and covered her completely with grain sacks.

Seconds later Farrell appeared on horseback, and Regan held her breath as he shouted at the old man. After pretending he was deaf for some minutes, the old man refused to allow Farrell to search his wagon; he pulled a pistol when Farrell kept insisting. At last the old man reluctantly admitted having seen three men riding by, one with a pretty woman in the saddle in front of him. Farrell took off in a flurry of hoofs and dust.

“You can come out now,” the old man said, grabbing Regan's arm and pulling her to the seat.

Rubbing her arm, she refrained from asking the man to stop tossing her about like one of his feed sacks. After several ferocious sneezes, she asked if he knew where the Stanford plantation in Virginia was.

“That's a long way. It'll take days.”

“Not if we change horses and travel all night. I'll pay for the horses and any other expenses.”

He seemed to study her for several minutes. “Maybe we could work something out. I'll get you there in record time if you'll tell me why that Englishman was chasing you and what you want with Travis, or is it Wesley you're after?”

“I'll tell you everything, and Travis is mine.”

“Lady, you got your hands full,” he said, chuckling as he yelled for the horses to start moving. Within seconds they were tearing down the road, and Regan was holding on with both hands, her teeth jarring together constantly. She couldn't speak or tell any story.

An hour later the man stopped the wagon, got down, and pulled her out after him.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“We're going by boat,” he said. “I'll sail you to Travis's front door.” After a mile hike they came to a little cabin and a dock reaching into a narrow stream of water. The man disappeared into the cabin for a moment and soon returned with a canvas bag. “Let's go,” he said, shoving her into a boat as worn-out as his wagon had been.

“Now talk,” he said once they were under way.

Days later the man dropped Regan off at the dock of Travis's plantation, bidding her goodbye and good luck. It was early morning, and the plantation was silent as she ran all the way from the dock to the house.

The door was open, and as she tore up the stairs she prayed Travis and Jennifer would be asleep in one of the rooms. She started throwing open door after door, cursing the house for being so large and causing her to take so much time.

She found him, just his hair showing above the sheet, in the fourth bedroom. “Travis!” she cried, flinging herself at him. “Where's Jennifer? Is she all right? How could you have left me not knowing and be here sleeping so calmly?” she asked, giving him a good cuff on the ear.

The man who sat up was not Travis. He was very much like him but a smaller version.

“Now what has my brother done?” he asked wearily, rubbing his ear, but as he looked at her he smiled. “You've got to be Regan. Let me introduce—.”

“Where are Travis and my daughter?”

Wesley was instantly alert. “Tell me what's happened.”

“Margo Jenkins kidnapped our daughter, and Travis went after her.”

Before she could answer, Wes threw back the covers, not caring that he was nude, and began to dress.

“I always told Travis that Margo was no good, but he felt he owed her something so he always indulged her. She thinks she can have anything in the world, that it's hers by right. Come with me,” he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her with him.

“You're very much like Travis,” she said, gasping at the pain he was causing her wrist and trying to keep up with his long strides.

“There's no time for insults now,” he said, leaving her at the library door while he loaded two pistols and stuck them in his belt. “Can you ride? No, Travis said you couldn't. Come on, you can ride in front of me. The two of us together aren't as heavy as Travis.”

If Regan had time or the inclination, she would have been disgusted with Travis's little brother. How could there be two men like Travis? And in another year or two Wes was going to be as large as Travis.

“I'm Wesley,” he said as he dropped her into the saddle before mounting behind her.

“Somehow I assumed that,” she said before they took off at a breathless gallop.

At the door to Margo's house, Wes let her down. “We'll go in separately. Remember, I'll be close by you.”

With that he left her, and Regan walked through the front door. It took only moments to find Margo as she sat in the library.

“Just in time,” Margo smiled graciously, but her eyes were red. “You're the third visitor I've had this morning.”