Sweet Savage Eden (34 page)

“And by now your feisty Indian has surely slit my throat.”

“You will gain speed when you become adept. Aim low. The musket will kick back.”

He fired off a shot, hitting a target upon a distant tree dead center. He reloaded, showing her how quickly all of the separate acts could be performed. Then he set the musket upon the rest for her. She aimed, low as he had suggested. The match ignited the powder, which shot off the ball. There was a tremendous roar and a mighty recoil. It sent her flying backward, and she would have fallen had he not caught her.

“You will get used to it,” he said, setting her firmly upon her feet. “Now, let’s do it again. You do all the steps this time.”

She was exhausted when he at last determined that she should have a rest. The musket was monstrously heavy and difficult to manage. He yelled at her when she forgot to close the powder dish, and he yelled at her again when the long match dangled too close to her skirts. She yelled back and tried again, sweat beading upon her brow and trickling between her breasts. She determined that she would come to fire the damned thing better than he could. On her last effort she did very well. She loaded, aimed, and fired in a matter of a minute or two, and she did not fall back with the kick of
the firepower. Triumphantly she handed him the heavy musket.

“Have I passed for the day, milord?”

“You have,” he said calmly. “But then, I expected you to do very well indeed.”

“Oh, yes. That is why you married me.”

He stared at her hard. “You know why I married you. Let’s go. You wish to see John Tannen. Now is the time to do so.”

Silently they walked back to the palisade. Jamie knew his way about. He wound through the rows of houses and buildings until he came to one of the small wattle-and-daub thatched-roof homes with a smoke hole in the center. He started to knock upon the door, but the door opened and a young bearded blond man stood there, his thin face ravaged and weary but a surprised smile coming quickly to his features. “Lord Cameron, ’tis a pleasure.”

“John Tannen, this is my wife, Lady Cameron. She has something she wishes to tell you.”

The man looked very awkward. He pulled his flat cap from his head and squeezed it between his hands, then indicated that they should come in. “I’m so sorry, milady, milord. I’m in a bit of upheaval. I was awaiting me Joan, ye know, and, well, I’m not much of a housekeeper. And I’ve the older boy with me, and Joan’s little sister, and we don’t seem to be able to keep up much.”

The small house was something of a sty, Jassy thought, for there was clothing everywhere, and the pots and pans and trenchers and jugs from many a meal were strewn about a rough wood table. A dirty little girl with huge, brown, red-rimmed eyes stared at her dolefully from the center of the room, and a boy of about ten watched her from the table where he tried to mend a pair of hose with a needle and thread and brass thimble.

Jassy looked from the boy to John Tannen. “I—I wanted to say that I was with your wife at the … at the end, Mr. Tannen. She spoke of you with a great deal of love, and I wished to convey that to you. I thought it important.”

He suddenly took her hand in both of his great, rough worker’s hands and knelt down upon the rough floor of his dwelling. He bowed humbly over her hand.

“Milady, I have heard of your tender care of my wife, and as God is my witness, you’ve my eternal gratitude.”

Jassy stepped back, reddening. She hadn’t thought much of a man who had allowed his wife to travel to meet him, especially in Joan’s condition, but John Tannen seemed a sincere individual, bereft, and doing his best to stumble through the trying time. She tugged upon his hand. “Mr. Tannen, please get up. I did nothing, really.”

He nodded, not really hearing her words, and he did not rise. “Mr. Tannen.” She looked helplessly to Jamie. He was watching her with curious eyes, and he shrugged, leaving the situation to her.

“Mr. Tannen, get up! Now, I know that you are in pain, but indeed, this place is a hovel, and Joan would have been sorely disappointed in it.” She pulled her hand away from him and looked to Jamie again, but Jamie intended to give her no help. She felt a slight quivering in her chin, wondering if the action she was contemplating would assure him that he had married beneath his class, but then she didn’t care. He had cast her out to sink or swim, and so she would do as she chose.

She walked over to the table. “What’s your name, boy?”

“Edmund, milady.” He jumped up quickly. He was growing fast, Jassy saw. Too fast for his clothing, so it seemed.

“Edmund, fetch a good bucketful of water and heat it for me over the fire. Have you had your meal yet? Jamie will send some venison from the house, and he will send Molly over, too, and we will shortly have this place to rights.”

“But you must not, milady!” John Tannen had stumbled to his feet at last. Aghast, he looked from Jassy to Jamie, back to Jassy, and then to Jamie once more. “Lord Cameron, you must explain to her that I am a common laborer and that she is your wife, and that it—that I am
grateful, but …” He paused, talking to Jassy. “I am ever so grateful, but … Lord Cameron, please help me.”

Jassy looked to Jamie too. If he denied her, she knew that she would defy him. This man needed help. Jamie was his master, and John Tannen had lost his wife in Jamie’s service.

And she wanted to help. She
needed
to help. She held her breath and lifted her chin high.

Jamie watched her with his dark, fathomless gaze, then replied slowly to John Tannen. “I am afraid that she is determined, John, and there is little that I can say to her.
You
cannot deny that you need the help, and I promise you, my wife will see to it that you are quickly in some state of repair. I will send her maid, as she has suggested, along with a side of venison. Edmund, see that you escort her home after dinner.”

His eyes fell upon Jassy one last time. She watched him in return, and she could not tell for sure, but he did not seem to be judging her or condemning her. If she sensed anything at all in his gaze, it was pride, and it was a good feeling. It warmed her deeply.

“Edmund! Come along now, these things must be done. What is your sister’s name?”

“She is Ma’s sister, not mine,” Edmund said. “Her name is Margaret.”

“Margaret.” Jassy lifted the girl off the floor and set her upon the table. She found a mop cloth on the table and a bowl of water, and began dabbing at the little girl’s face. “Ah! There is a child beneath the dirt! And truly a girl. A very pretty little girl. Come now, let’s move along. There’s much to do.”

Molly soon arrived with the venison. She reviled poor John Tannen for the state of his house, and when he tried to explain that it was the harvest season, she found fault with something else. Jassy ignored them both and set about making a good and palatable meal. With Margret’s help she found vegetables for a stew and a bit of salt for seasoning, and cooked it all in a pot above the hearth. With Molly in charge, the place quickly became more habitable. She had everyone moving about, including
John Tannen. She had the poor man so befuddled that when he at last sat down to eat, he did so with a sigh of great impatience. “Woman!” he muttered to Molly, “you do make a body long for solitude!”

Molly rapped him on the hand with her serving spoon. “John Tannen, get your filthy fingers off that bread. You will wash for this meal, or you will not consume it!”

With a quick oath he threw the bread down and rose. Then he looked at Jassy and apologized profusely. “Milady, she could make the good Lord rise and shudder himself, she could!”

“I’ve no doubt,” Jassy said, laughing at Molly’s quick look of frustration. “Now run along and wash. She is right about your hands at least.”

He went along and did as he was told. When the meal was over, he went back to work, his son coming along at his heels. Jassy determined to bathe Margaret and dress her in a clean gown. She only had one other, but it was better than the first. With her face and body scrubbed, Margaret was a very pretty little girl, and she very much resembled her sister Joan. “I am going to make you another dress,” Jassy promised her. “From one of my own. Would you like that?”

“Oh, yes, milady!” Margaret said. Jassy looked at Molly and found that her friend and servant was studying her solemnly.

Promising a gown to this little waif … it was another of those things that she was able to do because she had been swept from the gutter by Lord Cameron.

She stood and kissed Margaret’s little cheek. “I hear John and Edmund coming back. Edmund will walk Molly and me home, but we shall come see you tomorrow. All right?”

Shyly Margaret nodded. John and Edmund were inside the door. John Tannen tried to speak, but Molly interrupted him. “We shall finish tomorrow. Until then, Mr. Tannen, you keep from destroying all that has been set right, eh?”

Jassy grinned and shrugged. It was the most fun she had had in a very long time. She had done something for
someone that day, and it seemed that it had even worked out right.

Jamie was awaiting her in the hall when she returned. He sat at the table sipping wine, and he offered both her and Molly something to eat and drink while they spoke about the day. Molly was more verbal, tsking and telling him about John’s slovenly ways.

“But he’s a very good worker,” Jamie said. He poured Jassy a glass of wine and held the earthenware jug above a third glass.

“Milord, I don’t mind if I do at all,” Molly said, and Jamie laughed and poured out the glass. The fire was still burning in the hearth, and Molly sat right beside them at the table.

“John will have his own acres soon enough,” Jamie told Molly. “He labors in the township, and he works in the field. He is a man who will prosper, and I am heartily sorry that he lost his wife and child.”

“Well, in another day or two he shall be set!” Molly said firmly. She drained her wine, then seemed to realize that she sat between the lord and lady of the house. She stood quickly. “Good night, Lord Cameron, Jass—er, I mean, Lady Cameron.”

“Good night, Molly,” Jamie said.

Jassy echoed his words, then nervously finished the wine that her husband had poured her. She wanted to show her gratitude in some measure, not so much for any material thing that he had given her but because he had bestowed his faith upon her.

She stood up, then yawned unintentionally. It had been a very long day, and she had worked very hard. “Excuse me!” she murmured self-consciously.

“You’re excused,” he said gravely.

“I … I wish to thank you.”

“For what?”

“I suppose my behavior today was not the best. Perhaps I should not have insisted I stay in the house and work. I realize that I did not appear the lady at all—”

He stood, taking her glass from her hand, cutting her
off. “On the contrary, love. I think that you appeared a very grand lady today. A very grand lady, indeed. Now, come to bed. It is late, and the morning will come early.”

She meant to respond to him that night. She meant, with all her heart, to respond to him fully and willingly.

But he had some business to attend to at his desk, and as soon as her head hit the pillow, she fell asleep, soundly exhausted and very comfortable. In the night she felt an even greater comfort, for his arms came around her. And in the morning she was awakened by the soft pressure of his hands caressing her breasts, moving over her buttocks. She started to speak, to turn to him. His whisper touched her earlobe. “Sh …”

Then she gasped, startled with the pleasure as he slipped into her erotically from behind. She had been barely awake, and it all had the magical quality of a dream, yet he was real enough, very real, and the sensations that erupted over her were the same.

Then he rose quickly, kissed her cheek, and reminded her that breakfast was early.

Her first weeks in the township went much the same. Molly quickly had the Tannen home in good order, but she and Jassy continued to spend time there, for Jassy had become very attached to little Margaret. And when she finished helping out at the Tannen home, she discovered that there was much to do in her own home. They could not depend upon supplies from England. Nor could any lady be idle, for there was not just the management of the household to be kept in order, but also there was always some food to be dried and stored for winter, meat to be smoked or salted, candles and soap to be made, bread to be baked, and so forth. Having servants was one thing, Jassy quickly discovered, but here, it meant having someone to share the work, not having someone to do it all. Monday through Saturday were workdays, and Sunday was a day of worship, and everyone from Lord and Lady Cameron and their noble guests to the lowliest laborer or serving wench attended services
at the church. They wore their best clothes, and they celebrated the day with grace and good humor.

Jassy had been in the hundred for nearly a month when Jamie left her for a week, traveling into the interior at the request of Opechancanough. She was startled at the distress his departure caused her, and she tried to talk him out of going. So far, the only Indian she had met was Hope, and she wasn’t sure that Hope would count as a representative of the Powhatan Confederation. She had seen some of the Indians, walking along or riding by the palisade. She had even seen Jamie pause to speak with the wildly tattooed men and children, but Jamie had been high atop his horse with his knife at his calf, his musket upon his saddle.

She did not like the idea of his going into the interior.

“Do you care so much, then, my love?” he asked that night, teasing her. She brushed her hair, and he lay in bed watching her.

“I think that you are being foolish.”

“I have been invited. For the sake of the settlement, I must go.”

“Someone else should go. I have heard what these Indians can do to white men.”

“If I am slain, milady, think of the benefits that will come your way. You carry my heir, and so all of my property will rest in your hands. You can return to England, if you so wish.
You
can do whatever you will.”

“Stop it!” she hissed to him. “They
do
kill white men, you know.
Savagely
. They mutilate and burn them and skin them alive, or so I have heard.”