Sweet Release (5 page)

“I don’t care if ye’re bloody King George! Ye need to eat if ye ,want—“ Nan began.

“I own a shipbuilding firm in London. I have no idea how I came to be in this godforsaken land, but I need your father’s help in alerting the authorities so I may return to England as soon as possible.”

For a moment Cassie could not grasp what she had just heard.

“Do you mean to say you’ve been spirited? You’re not a convict?” She couldn’t help laughing. “There are rumors that such things happen with small children, Mr. Braden—“

“Kenleigh.”

“But to a man of social standing? Surely that’s impossible.”

“Nevertheless, it has happened. If you inform your father, I’m confident he will find the time to help amend this unfortunate situation.”

“You expect me to believe you?”

“I don’t care what
you
believe. You simply need to deliver my message. If you would allow me to write a letter to my brother-in-law, the matter will be easily resolved.”

Cassie bristled at his easy dismissal of her.

“You may send your letter, Mr. Braden, or whatever your name is. But be warned, I shall read it. I can’t have you calling a pack of river pirates down on our heads to help you escape.” She noted with satisfaction the convict’s raised eyebrows. He’d thought her illiterate. Many women in these colonies were. “I shall also demand your vow that you will not try to escape. Promise me you will serve my father as his bondsman until you have proved your tale true. I spent my father’s good coin to save your life. If you are a gentleman, you’ll want to repay him.”

Silence stretched between them. For a moment she was sure he would refuse.

“Don’t worry,” he said at last. “He’ll get his due.” It sounded more like a threat than a promise. “May I ask how much I cost?”

“Nearly ten pounds.”

“Ten pounds?” He laughed bitterly, shaking his head as if ten pounds were nothing.

“Do I have your word?”

“Aye, mistress, on my honor.” He bowed his head slightly in a mock display of submission, an icy smile on his lips. “You shall have your ten pounds from my flesh. And more, I’m sure.”

“Good.” She felt herself relax, though asking a lying felon to keep his word did seem futile. “I shall also send a note to the county sheriff. He should be able to help us learn the truth. Nan, could you fetch pen, ink, and parchment? And send Elly to clean up Mr. Braden’s mess.”

“Yes, missy.”

The plump cook turned to leave, giving the convict one last disgruntled look. No one dumped her food on the floor without tasting it first.

“I should also like to shave and be fitted with proper garments. Unless, of course, it’s the custom here for young ladies to stare at naked men.”

Cassie involuntarily raised her hands to her cheeks, feeling them flush with anger and embarrassment.

“Indeed, you shall have clothing, Mr. Braden. In Virginia we are civilized. It is your decision to stand there improperly exposed. As it is, I barely noticed.”

“Is that so?” The arrogant smile that played across his face told her he’d seen through her lie.

“I’ve lived on this plantation my entire life, Mr. Braden. I’ve cared for both sick men and sick animals. Men differ but slightly from horses, bull, boars, and…and cocks!”

“Cocks? Then may I suggest you haven’t looked closely enough?”

“I was referring to the way men preen and strut about, Mr. Braden.”

She strode through the door, forcing herself to appear calm. Inside she seethed. The man was insufferable! The smug way he’d smiled at her—how dared he suggest she enjoyed seeing him naked! She’d as soon look at the back end of a pig!

“As soon as Mr. Braden has been fitted with clothes, he will be free to walk about the grounds,” she told Luke between gritted teeth as she passed. “Keep your eye on him. If he tries to escape, you have my permission to strangle him.”

“Yes’m.”

She caught the slight smile that flitted across Luke’s face. But there was nothing funny about this. Nothing at all.

“Sure and ‘e’s got a temper,” observed Nan as Cassie overtook her.

“See that he gets clothes, please. Preferably something woolen and itchy.” Cassie stomped on ahead, her skirts swishing.

“Got yer goat, did ‘e?” Nan called from behind her with a chuckle.

Cassie stomped into the great house.
The nerve of that arrogant man!
She’d saved him from certain death on that slave peddler’s schooner and offered him a new life, only to have him act like a pompous ingrate.

She sat with an exasperated sigh at her father’s desk and penned , a note to Sheriff Hollingsworth, who lived a long day’s journey upriver. No need to mimic her father’s script this time. Everyone believed he was still in England chasing down prime horseflesh and perhaps a new wife. Sometimes the situation demanded she forge letters in her father’s hand. Other times it meant making up stories about his latest adventures communicated to her in letters no one else saw. Cassie told herself that maintaining one big lie was no worse than telling dozens of small ones, as she would otherwise have been forced to do to conceal her father’s condition and whereabouts.

It was, after all, the only way to keep her promise to him. Some had been scandalized by his decision to leave his daughter in charge of his estate, but most viewed it as further proof of his eccentric nature. Master Carter had offered to help should Cassie need it, but she was determined to do without his assistance. A woman could manage an estate as well as any man, and she would prove it.

She finished the letter, folded it, then sealed it with a few drops of candle wax. What if the convict’s story were true? The thought gave her pause. What if Cole Braden were not Cole Braden at all but an innocent man who’d suffered a horrible injustice at the hands of greedy traders? His speech was refined and suggested a genteel upbringing. But surely no one would attempt to kidnap and sell one of the gentry in these modem times when regular shipping kept both sides of the Atlantic in such close contact. The kidnapper would be caught. These days nothing scandalous happened in London or Williamsburg without news of it being spread to the other side of the ocean a scant two months later.

No, such intrigue was too fantastic to be true. Besides, no one as handsome and smug as Mr. Braden could possibly be innocent.

Alec pulled up the plain linsey-woolsey breeches the cook had brought him and tied them at his waist. Weak, thinner, and scarred by the lash, the body he was dressing did not feel like his own. At least he’d been allowed to shave. He pulled the shirt over his head, winced at the protestations of his healing ribs, and tucked it in. Although the garments were plain, they were clean and well made. Dressed like a peasant, his feet bare, he decided he must look much like the castaway in that story by Daniel Defoe, another book he’d never had time to read. He remembered complaining once to Elizabeth and Matthew that he’d like to see the Americas, though he had never imagined it would be under these circumstances. If Miss Blakewell were true to her word, his letter to his sister and brother-in-law was already on its way to the county sheriff with her own dispatch. The sheriff, she’d said, was a trustworthy man who would see to it that his letter made its way quickly and safely to port. Despite her assurances, Alec felt uneasy.

Blakewell and his lovely daughter stood to gain fourteen years of hard labor at his expense if he failed to regain his name. It was not in their best interests to aid him, and he could not be entirely certain they hadn’t been in on the plot to kidnap him in the first place. Everyone knew how desperate planters were for able-bodied men. Their “peculiar institution” of slavery had arisen from just that need. If the master’s daughter had to work in the fields, as the mud on her gown had suggested, Blake well’s Neck was more shorthanded than most farms. Besides, what kind of man would leave his daughter to run his estate?

If what she’d told him was true, he’d been cooped up in that blasted clapboard shanty for more than a week now. It would feel good to be outdoors again. Shielding his eyes against the daylight, Alec stepped into a strange and unfamiliar world.

The sun warmed his skin, and a sticky breeze tickled his nostrils with unfamiliar smells. When his eyes had grown accustomed to the light, he saw that he stood in what appeared to be a small village. Children, white-skinned and brown-skinned, ran back and forth, laughing and playing together in the rows between clapboard cabins similar to his. Women went about their daily chores, some tending small garden plots, others sweeping and cleaning. He surmised these must be the quarters for slaves and indentured servants. Though small and crudely built, the cabins were clean and in good repair.

In the distance, the blue line of sky met the jagged silhouette of forest. Pines taller than any he had seen thrust upward in search of sunlight. The twitter of birds, their songs foreign, filled the air. A cloud of yellow-green lifted off the roof of a nearby cabin, all flapping feathers, and swept across the sky, flashes of orange-gold gleaming in the sunlight.

He was so far from home.

With the giant who’d been assigned to guard him following silently behind, he made his way slowly through the cabins toward what appeared to be stables and barns, silently cursing his stiff muscles.

“My name is Alec Kenleigh. If you’re going to follow me around all day, we might as well introduce ourselves.”

“Luke,” the big man said, lapsing into silence once again. Alec could see newly healed lash marks peeking out from under Luke’s shirt. What transgression had he supposedly committed to earn them? Stories Socrates had told him—tales of whippings, maimings and torture—sprang into his mind. Socrates had been born and raised a slave until Alec’s father, in need of assistance during a visit to Jamestown, had purchased him. Freed when they’d returned to England, Socrates had stayed to serve first Alec’s father, then Alec, as his valet. After Alec had taught him to read, Socrates had become even more proper and English than the king himself. He’d been Alec’s only real link to his father, showing him affection when his father would not. As a result, Alec had endured Socrates’ admonitions to sit up straight, to straighten his jabot and keep his waistcoat buttoned without complaint, eager for the praise that always followed. What would Socrates think if he could see Alec now, barefoot and dressed in coarse clothing? Alec couldn’t help smiling. God, he missed the old man.

A pretty young woman, her belly swollen with child, stepped from the front door of one cabin, only to rush back inside as soon as she saw him and slam the door behind her. He became aware that, with the exception of the children, who seemed oblivious to his presence, everyone was staring at him. Like the petite, flaxen haired maidservant who’d brought him clothing and a razor and had cleaned the gruel from his cabin floor, these people’s eyes held a combination of fear and loathing. Considering what they all believed him guilty of, he could not blame them. Miss Blakewell had shown him the indenture papers she claimed were his when she’d come to take his letter. Nicholas Braden, ravisher and defiler of women. After the way he’d treated her on their first encounter, Miss Blakewell had every reason to think him capable of such a heinous crime.

Past the dairy bam, stables, and animal pens he found a smithy, a sawmill, and several massive warehouses. He poked his head inside one to see what it contained.

“The dryin’ shed, this is.”

Startled, he turned to see a bare-chested, fair-haired young man covered with sweat and sawdust.

“Drying shed?”

“For curin’ tobacco.” The man pushed past him and opened the door wide. “After it’s harvested, we hang it from those racks till it’s dry and ready for prizin’.”

Alec looked in to see an enormous space divided by scaffolding that rose to a ceiling crisscrossed by wooden beams.

“Right now all we got in here is empty hogsheads and bats.” The man smiled, then whistled loudly into the cavernous space. The ceiling crawled. A few winged inhabitants, roused from sleep, flew loose from the rafters, then resettled among their kin.

“They don’t harm anyone, but they do keep the little ‘uns away. The name’s Zachariah.” The man extended his hand with a warm smile. “Friends call me Zach.”

“Alec Kenleigh.”

Zach’s handshake was firm.

“Kenleigh? So it’s true. Elly said ye’re claimin’ to be some kidnapped London gent.”

“Aye.”

Their gazes locked for one long moment.

“Gentleman or felon, it makes no difference to me. We all turn to dust in the grave.” Zach stepped around the corner of the warehouse to a rain barrel. He dipped his shirt into the water and, with a robust groan of pleasure, squeezed it out onto his chest. “You’ll find most of us—most redemptioners, that is—have an open mind,” he continued. “The colony has given us all a new start. All that matters is what a man does here and now.” Though casually spoken, the words were laden with warning.

“It’s returning to my life in England that concerns me.”

“It’s the safety of the children and womenfolk at Blakewell’s Neck that concerns me. Harm any one of them, and I’ll personally break yer neck.”

Though the sawyer was a few inches shorter than Alec, a life of physical labor had given him the body of an ox. Alec had no doubt he was fully capable of carrying out his threat.