Sweet Savage Eden (23 page)

So it had been … she thought pensively, until the last two nights had passed them by. On the first she had pretended sleep, and he had allowed her the deception, lying on his side of the bed, staring up at the canopy. To her surprise, she had lain awake very late, stunned that he had not touched her.

Then last night he had said wearily that she should snuff out the candles when she crawled into bed. And again he had ignored her, and again she had lain awake a long, long time.

To add fuel to the fires of discord, Jamie’s mind was on his coming voyage. Jassy was determined not to join him, and she argued with him at every opportunity. And at every opportunity he argued back, and informed her that she would do as she was told. If she wasn’t careful, he would demand that she come with him on the
Hawk
when he left on the fifteenth.

“Truly, Jassy, you look marvelous today. The lady born and bred. More noble than any of us!” Robert said, laughing ruefully and drawing her from her introspection.

“Thank you, Robert,” she said.

“And you, Jamie. How do you find marriage, now that you have succumbed to the state at long last?”

Jassy felt Jamie’s eyes upon her. “I find it deeply rewarding,” he said. “Infinitely … rewarding. And intriguing.”

They were spared further conversation on the subject, for Lymon came to the door, announcing that Captain Hornby was there.

“He begs not to disturb a private party,” Lymon said, addressing Jamie.

Jassy was somewhat startled when Jamie deferred to her. “My love, what an unexpected guest, a man of esteemed character.” He watched her still, and she wondered if he tested her. She wondered if he ever spoke with Robert and told him what a disappointment he really considered her to be. She did not believe so, but neither could she be grateful for the fact that if his marriage was less than he hoped, he gave no hint of such a thing in public. He was a proud man and would never admit to defeat.

“Good old Hornby?” Robert said. “Is he really here?”

“You must invite him in, Lymon,” Jassy said. Lymon bowed to her and left them.

“A wonderful old soul,” Robert said cheerfully to Jassy.

“Robert, really! What a way to refer to the poor man!” Lenore protested, but she smiled, taking the sting from her words. Maybe she really was in love with him, Jassy thought. She had grown far more gentle as of late.

“Well, love, he is old. He was old when Jamie first sailed with him in ’08. He must be ancient now.”

“And the finest mariner I have ever met,” Jamie said. Then Lymon was back with the man in question.

He
was
old, Jassy thought. His hair was snow white, as were the whiskers at his chin, and his face was heavily lined. He had bright green eyes, though, and he walked with the agility of a man half his age.

Captain Hornby apologized for the interruption, and assured Jamie that they could speak later. Jassy insisted he sit and have a drink, and he chose whiskey. She was glad that Lymon served the drink, for with Jamie’s next words, her fingers trembled in sudden spasms.

“Captain Hornby sails the
Sweet Eden
, my love. He will bring you to me in the Virginia colony.”

“Oh!” Lenore cried suddenly, looking at Jamie. “So Jassy is to come?”

“Aye, Jassy is to come.”

Lenore turned to her. “Oh, I’m ever so glad.”

“Why?” Jassy asked.

“Oh, well, you see, Robert has determined that we
must sail too. He wishes to take his chances with Jamie, and seek his fortune in Virginia.”

Jassy shook her head, forgetting her husband. “But, Robert, you are a fool! The land is full of warring heathens—”

“Oh, lady, nay, not so much as before!” the good captain said, interrupting her.

“No, it is not so bad as it once was,” the Duke of Carlyle told her, gazing affectionately at his son. He took Jassy’s hand in his own. “There were bad times, of course. When Captain Smith and the others arrived in 1607, the Indians were hostile. Some of the party believed that Powhatan’s people might have been responsible for the annihilation of the Roanoke colony at the end of last century. There have been reports of curiously light boys among their number, so perhaps the survivors were taken in by the confederation tribes.”

“The Indians had some good reason for hostility,” Jamie said from his stance at the mantel. “They had seen French and Spanish and English ships in the Chesapeake by the time the Jamestown settlers arrived. In 1524 Giovanni da Verrazano, Gomez the year after, and in 1560, Pedro Menendez de Aviles, who captured and enslaved the son of a werowance.”

“A heathen spiritual leader,” Captain Hornby informed Jassy.

“They all came with their guns blazing ceremonially, and few came in peace.”

“Ah, Lord Cameron!” Captain Hornby said. “You should know that the heathens are not so peaceful themselves!” He looked at Jassy. “He knows, milady, your husband does! On his first voyage he went with Captain John Smith up the peninsula to find Powhatan. It was the starving time, and the men were desperate to secure food. Powhatan tricked Captain Smith. Pocahontas warned them of the trick, and they survived. And the heathens are savage to their captives. Why, they mutilate their prisoners. They dismember them and throw the body parts into the fire to burn while they still live and breathe, and then they disembowel them.”

“Captain Hornby!” Jamie said sharply.

“I believe I’m going to faint!” Lenore gasped.

“Elizabeth
has
fainted!” Jassy cried. She was quickly on her feet, and she managed to catch her sister before she could fall. Then Jamie was beside her, lifting Elizabeth, carrying her to the massive chair before the fire. Her eyes flickered and opened. Someone had brought water for her. She looked about.

“Oh, I am sorry! So very sorry.”

“Nay, milady!” Captain Hornby apologized. “It is I who am sorry. I am not accustomed to the company of ladies. Forgive me.”

“You are forgiven, and gladly,” Elizabeth said. She looked up at Jassy and smiled wanly. “Well, don’t you see? If you go, and Lenore goes, then I must go too.”

“Don’t be mad!” Jassy said harshly. “You have a beautiful home here. You needn’t risk any of it. You won’t be alone. Jane and Henry will be here. And—and we will be back as soon as possible.”

No one said anything. Jassy realized that the silence was for her sake. Jamie was demanding that she come, because he knew that he would be gone for a very long time.

“I want to come with you,” Elizabeth said, and she squeezed Jassy’s hand.

“You are a wonderful, brave girl,” Jamie told her, “and we will be delighted to have you.”

Elizabeth smiled radiantly.

Jassy glanced quickly at her husband. She had always struggled too desperately through life to pay much heed to the news of distant lands, but men in the tavern had often spoken of the Jamestown colony. She had heard of the “starving time.” Over nine hundred settlers had traveled to Jamestown by that time. After Indian raids, disease, and starvation, only sixty or so had survived. She couldn’t imagine that a man of Jamie Cameron’s means could have risked his life on such a foolish quest.

She still hated him for even contemplating such a thing now.

“Other than the Indians, it was still a bad time, the
starving time,” Captain Hornby said. “Why, white men, good English men, feasted upon the dead of their own kind.”

“Captain!” Robert warned, “the ladies!”

“If the ladies are to travel to Virginia, perhaps they had best hear it all,” Jane said softly. “Are you all right now, Elizabeth?”

“Oh, yes, I—I am fine.”

“They ate Indians that year too,” Captain Hornby said cheerfully. “One fellow went mad and murdered his wife. Then he salted and ate her.”

“Captain, enough!” Jamie warned.

“And we call the Indians the savages,” Henry commented with disgust. “I am glad that you are the lot that has chosen to go.” He affectionately touched his wife’s protruding belly. “My son will be born on this land, as a good Englishman should be born.”

“A good Englishman? Henry, we’ve all heard of an instrument called the Earl of Exeter’s daughter, a good English torture device named for the charming man who invented it.” Jamie smiled at Jassy. “The rack, my love. The good, civilized, English rack. We disjoint and cripple and maim more slowly than the savages, perhaps.”

“Powhatan was a crafty old warrior,” Captain Hornby warned.

“Powhatan is dead.”

“That is true, and when his brothers, Opitchapan and Opechancanough, shared the rule of the Powhatan Confederation, it seemed that peace might be assured. But I am not so sure. Now Opechancanough rules alone. He is a crafty one, I’ll wager. Much like his brother.”

“Thank God I’m not having my child there!” Jane said, and shuddered.

Jassy’s stomach churned. She couldn’t imagine bearing a child in the wretched wilderness in which her husband was determined she would live. The child would die, she would die, they would all die.

“It sounds like a horrible place,” Jassy said aloud.

“Oh, no, milady, that it is not!” Captain Hornby protested. “I’ll grant you, milady, that there was confusion
at the first. A profusion of leaders. There was Edward Wingfield, who was unpopular for his Catholicism, Captain Newport, and John Smith himself. Lord de la Warr made it just in time to save the colony when the survivors were leaving in ’09. He was a harsh man, but he saved the colony, he did. There have been a number of charters.” He hesitated, looking at Jamie. “The Company did not always make the right decisions, and the king did not always judge the situation well, being here while the colony was there. With the lottery disbanded, one of the principal means of income has been lost, but now the tobacco crop flourishes, and the colony is making money of its own. Not that any of it will matter to you, milady,” he told Jassy. “The hundred is not Jamestown.”

Jassy stared reproachfully at Jamie.

He shrugged. “The hundred is my own land, and we are not subject to the rule of Jamestown. We will abide by the laws of England there. At the Carlyle Hundred we will be self-sustaining. We’ve already many families living there. Five carpenters, three gentlemen of means, fifteen farmers, ten laborers, two bricklayers, two tailors, two blacksmiths, and three masons, and all their diverse servants and so on. I interviewed them all myself before they sailed, and I am certain that we shall prosper.”

Why did he care? She wanted to scream it, to demand it. She wanted to cry and rail that he was a fool, but she could not do so, not here, not now. She had company, and her company, all but Elizabeth, still watched her for some flaw in the porcelain mask of her manner. She would not let them find a flaw. She stood. “I’m sure that our dinner is served. Shall we adjourn to the dining hall?”

With murmurs they all rose and left the room for the hall. Jassy realized that Jamie hung behind, that he watched her until the room had emptied. She paused. “Well, have I passed inspection? Do I manage well enough?”

“You manage well enough. You know it.”

“Not that it will matter. An actress’s bastard child can
surely greet a heathen tribe of Indians as well as a grand lady.”

“I’m sure that you will do well, my pet, whichever and whomever you choose to be.” Calmly he strode by her. She hesitated, breathing hard, hating him.

He waited for her before the doors to the dining room. He took her hand. “You do sparkle today.”

“Do I?”

“Is it because Robert Maxwell is here?”

“You must think what you will, milord.”

“And you may think what you will, but I have determined that I will find the woman with the sparkling eyes tonight. When the company has gone, when we are alone.”

“She is the same woman you’re standing beside.”

“She is not. But so help me, lady, I will meet her, in my bed, this very night.”

“This is a crude conversation. We’ve guests.”

“I will crush those airs, lady, mind you.” He did not lead her into the dining room but propelled her there with a hard shove upon the back. No one noticed them, though, for Lenore was busy chuckling, demanding to know what clothing was worn in the wilds.

“Oh, it’s all very civilized,” Captain Hornby assured her. “Men wear what is proper, as prescribed by Parliament in the days of good Queen Bess. For laborers, homespun linen or canvas jerkins, breeches, and hose. On Sundays they wear their best, with their flat caps, while the gentry, and nobility, milady, deck themselves out in their finest, in their taffetas and satins, decorated with embroidery and slashes and pinking. You needn’t fear. None has forgotten that it is a God-fearing, English community! There are some concessions, of course, to the wilderness. But I believe you will be heartily pleased with the goodness of the colonial manners and ways.”

“Well, that is encouraging, isn’t it, Jassy?” Lenore said. Jassy offered her a halfhearted smile and wondered how Lenore could be so cheerful about the prospects of their lives. Lenore had never known anything but comfort. She knew very little about the lives of the common
man in England, much less across the distance of an ocean. She didn’t know that people starved. She didn’t know that there were game laws, that men could be hanged for stealing a loaf of bread because they starved. She had no true conception of dirt, let alone a life of hardship and travail. No matter what Captain Hornby said, Jassy was certain that Virginia must be a grim place indeed.

Jassy took her place at the head of the table, her husband seating her. And when the lord himself was seated, the meal was served: soft, flaky founder; baby eels; roasted pheasants; new potatoes; and fresh summer vegetables. It was a wonderful and elegant feast.

Tears pricked her eyes. There was so very much! The cost of this meal alone might have saved her mother’s life. It could have spared her two months of scrubbing floors.

She realized that Josh, one of the kitchen lads, all decked out in Cameron livery, was standing beside her with the steaming platter of fish. She smiled, took a helping, and thanked him softly. She could not eat the fish. She looked down the table, her beautiful table, with its chandeliers and cloth and crystal and silver. The Duke of Carlyle was engaged in heavy conversation with Captain Hornby. Elizabeth laughed at something Henry said, and Jane, smiling bemusedly, paid them both heed. Robert whispered to Lenore, and Lenore smiled radiantly.