The Jezebel's Daughter (4 page)

Graves crossed the room to her and untied a pouch from his belt. It jingled loudly as he dropped it onto her outstretched palm. “Do you want to count it?” he asked, his tone making it plain she'd be better off trusting that the full amount was there.

“No, Captain. I trust you.” She inclined her head towards the closed door. “Please. Make use of my private rooms. There is wine and sweeties if you desire.” She looked as though she was going to say more but thought better of it. With another inclination of her head—this one almost a bow—she backed out of the room and shut and locked the door, leaving me alone with the captain.

IV

House of Earthly Delights, Nassau, New Providence Island

July, 1715

Graves stood near the door, only turning his head to look at me. He stared at me, his green eyes hard in the dim light of the fire. I could feel his gaze; it had a weight, a presence to it, as it traveled from the top of my head slowly down to the tips of my shoes, which were peeking out from the bottom hem of my petticoats. He crossed the room to the hearth and withdrew a taper from the fire. He moved about, lighting candles and brightening the room. Then he slipped off his coat and waistcoat and carefully laid them across the back of a chair. The sword and pistol at his waist, he laid aside on one of the sideboards, the metal thudding against the solid wood with an ominous sound.

When he was finished, he stood next to me and reached for my hand. Holding it loosely in his grip, he drew me into the middle of the room and stood me in front of the hearth. Then he slowly circled around me as I stood stock still. “Take off your clothes,” he said once he stood in front of me again. I hesitated for a moment. “If I tear them, Madame will take the cost to mend them out of your hide,” he said.

I nodded minutely and with trembling, numb fingers, began taking off my gown, then my petticoats and the stomacher, dropping them into an untidy pile around my feet. I couldn't reach the laces of my stays and looked at the captain in mute appeal. He circled around behind me again and I heard the sound of a knife being unsheathed a moment before it sliced through the laces. I let it, too, fall to the floor and stood in just my stockings and shift.

Graves stood in front of me again, his eyes hooded, predatory, as they moved over my body again. I knew he could see my silhouette through the thin material of my shift and heat rose in my cheeks. “Take your hair down,” he said.

“I'm... I'm not certain I can, sir,” I said meekly. The fontage was fastened into my hair carefully, and I was terrified of ruining it.

“Who can?”

“Tansy. The slave girl,” I answered.

He nodded and opened the door a bit. Through the opening, I could see Mr. MacIsaac's face. He met my eyes and the ghost of something approaching sorrow crossed his face before he looked down at his captain. The men spoke in hushed tones for a brief moment before Graves closed the door again. He turned to face me, leaning back against the door while we waited, his arms crossed loosely over his chest. I stood in front of the fire, shivering despite the heat. My eyes rested for a brief moment on the sword and pistol lying on the sideboard near me. I tried to calculate whether I could reach it before Graves reacted. If I could, what would I do with them? Shoot the Captain? Run him through? I'd be better off killing myself.

Silent moments passed before there was a soft knocking at the door. Graves turned and opened it, allowing Tansy to come in. “Get her hair down,” he ordered.

“
Wi, mesye a
,” Tansy said with a curtsy. She crossed to my side and drew me down onto the edge of the couch. I wanted to cry out, beg her not to leave me, to help me escape this place, but the look on the captain's face stole the breath from my lungs. Tansy's nimble fingers made quick work of the bit of lace and baubles in my hair, which she pressed into my hands once she'd gotten them free. She flashed me a smile before rising and exiting the room just as fast as she had entered it.

I sat still, clenching the lace and baubles, watching Tansy as she left, feeling as though she had taken some part of me with her. Graves came closer, standing just in front of me. He reached down and took the things from my hands and laid them aside on the table next to the couch. Then he took both my hands in his and drew me to my feet. Stepping carefully over the untidy pile of my dress, he positioned me in the same spot in front of the fire that I had occupied before Tansy came. He pointed at my head. “The hair,” he said and stepped back.

I reached up and took out the braids and pins, letting my hair fall over my shoulders, nearly to my waist in soft, bouncy curls. The scent of the soap Tansy had used on it filled my nostrils with the sweet, heady smell of flowers and spices. Graves took a step closer to me and reached out, drawing a tendril of gold through his fingers. Though he didn't say anything, his approval of the color or the texture or both was plain on his face. Then he lowered his eyes to my breasts and said, “The rest now.”

I went cold inside and I closed my eyes as I reached for the drawstrings at the neck of my shift and pulled on them. The garment slithered down my body to pool around my ankles. My skin pebbled, though less from cold air than from sheer embarrassment and shame. I leaned down to untie the tape garters holding my stockings up around my thighs.

“Leave them,” Graves said.

I straightened and tried to cross my arms over my breasts until I saw the warning in his eyes. I lowered my arms and curled my hands into tight fists at my sides. My gaze moved around the room, looking everywhere at everything but the captain's face.

The room was perfectly silent except for the sound of our breathing. Graves came closer to me and I could smell him now. He smelled of salt, sweat, smoke, and something else more pleasant, spicy and citrusy. He reached out and touched me, using just the tips of his rough fingers to slide down the inside of my arm, stroking the soft, sensitive flesh there.

His hands slipped up my sides, over my hips and waist, to come to a stop at my breasts. He cupped them, squeezing them, and pinching my nipples roughly before letting the right breast go and plunging his hand between my legs. I gasped and tried to squirm out of his grasp.

“Don't,” he warned and leaned forward to press his mouth against mine and force his tongue between my lips. He tasted of wine and of something sour and rotten. He crushed me against his body, using his free arm to hook around my back and grip my waist as his other hand busied itself between my legs. The fabric of his shirt was rough against my skin and scraped over my sensitive breasts. I felt a flutter in my belly when his fingers began circling around some tiny, hitherto unexplored part of my body, and I made an involuntary noise in my throat. His kisses grew hungrier, as though he took my sounds as an encouragement of some kind.

He released me and then roughly shoved me onto my back atop the couch behind me. “Open your legs,” he said as he knelt and worked the buttons on his flies. He whisked down his breeches and took hold my legs, hooking my knees over his shoulders, and grasped my waist. He pulled me down to him and forced his hand between our bodies again. “Dry as a bone,” he murmured before spitting into his hand. His fingers found the same spot as before and he began manipulating it, rubbing in teasing, light circles. My belly felt tight and fluttery. I shivered and closed my eyes.

What would my mother think of this? Would she blame me somehow for allowing myself to be put into this predicament? Or would she understand that everything that had happened to me since I'd washed ashore had been out of my control? And what about my father? How would he react to Graves and Madame? Would he pursue legal action, or would his anger force him to violence? I suddenly pictured Father, Matthais, and Gunnar hunting Graves, armed with pistols and swords. I clung to the vision, despite the fact that it would never happen. They were gone, dead and rotting away at the bottom of the ocean. I was truly alone and at the mercy of fate and circumstance.

Graves leaned over me, the sight of his ruthless face drawing me back from my hopes. His other hand grasped the back of my knee and forced my thigh up against my body, practically folding me in half. He kissed me again, more roughly this time, and I felt his finger push inside me. I squealed in pain and then screamed out when something harder and much larger pushed in right after. I felt as though I was being split in two and something inside my body tore.

He grunted and worked his hips, thrusting in and out of me, still grasping my knee. His other hand squeezed my breast, milking it as though it was a cow's teat. His eyes were closed as he went about his business with a determined look on his face. I was crying; silent, hot tears streaked down my face and I prayed to God that it would be soon over. I wanted to call out for my mother, for Tansy, for Mr. MacIsaac or one of the planters, but I dared not make a sound for fear of what Graves would do to me. I bit my lip hard enough to draw blood. There was pain—sharp and shocking and the bright metallic taste of blood filled my mouth—but it was nothing compared to what Graves was doing to me.

A few moments later, with a gasp and a shudder, the captain's hips stopped and he collapsed atop me, panting like a horse ridden hard across a great distance. He slid out of me with a sigh and pushed himself up to his knees once more. “Clean yourself up,” he said before rising, taking up my shift and wiping himself off with a corner of it. He left behind a dark smear and handed the ruined garment to me before turning away and doing up his flies.

I dabbed gently at myself and was horrified to see the amount of blood on the shift when I was done. I sat up and crossed my arms over my breasts. I felt terrible—sore, angry, frightened, and unbearably small and vulnerable. I watched as he put his waistcoat and coat on, arranged his sword and pistol, and then left the room, closing the door behind him and sparring not a word or even a backward glance in my direction.

I burst out into sobs and buried my face in my hands. Tansy had said that I might learn to enjoy it. How that could possibly be true? Who in their right mind could ever enjoy something so painful and humiliating? I felt dehumanized, used and tossed aside like a broken toy.

The door opened and Tansy came in, carrying a small white crock, a stone bottle, a basin of water, and a light blue robe that had been slung over one of her shoulders. “Oh,
petit
,” she said softly as she came to sit next to me. “Don't you cry. Don't you give
moun sa a dyab
no satisfaction of breaking you.” At my blank look, she explained, “That devil man. He take what he want, however he want, from whomever stupid enough to be in between. He want you strength. He want you pride. But you promise Tansy you don't give it him,
wi
?”

I nodded miserably and allowed her to take care of me. She spread the robe over my shoulders, and used a soft cloth from her apron to wipe my face. “Lay back,
zwazo
ti kras
,” she crooned, calling me something that sounded like
little bird
in French. “Tansy gonna make sure you don't bear him no bastard. Ain't no body deserve that kinda Hell. Lay back and close you eyes.” She positioned me so that my backside hung over the edge of the couch and placed the bowl beneath me. Then she uncorked the bottle and the strong smell of vinegar wafted out of it. “This sting a bit,
petit,
” she said before she poured the vinegar over me, making sure that some of it got inside me. It did sting and my tears started anew. She started humming again, the same song she'd hummed the first time I'd met her. The song soothed me and I relaxed a bit, the tears drying up and waning off into occasional hiccoughs.

After rinsing me thoroughly with the vinegar, she dried me off tenderly and then opened the crock. An earthy scent, like the forest after the rain, hit my nose and then she began carefully spreading something cool and soothing over my raw, sore tissues. “There be comfrey in this cream,” the slave woman explained as her strong fingers massaged me. “Take the soreness right away.” Soon she was done and helped me to my feet. “You hungry?” she asked as she led me to the door.

I shook my head. “I just want to sleep.”

She nodded and we stepped out into the courtyard. I glanced towards the tavern and spotted Graves at the bar, sitting next to Mr. MacIsaac. The captain didn't spare a glance at me but his quartermaster met my eyes briefly before quickly looking away. Something I couldn't understand swam in their depths and I puzzled it over as Tansy and I went up the stairs to my room.

Once there, she knelt before me and untied my garters and rolled down my stockings, slipping them off my toes and laying them aside. Then she helped me into a clean shift and into bed. She smoothed my hair back from my brow and then wished me a good night before she disappeared. I couldn't miss the sound of the key turning in the lock again. I was once more a prisoner, despite the horrors of the previous few hours.

I flopped over onto my side, facing the windows, and looked out. The town was more alive at night than during the day and the sounds of people and animals going on about their lives made me unreasonably angry. What I had just endured should have caused the entire world to stop spinning. People should be aware of my pain, of my heart-ache, and it was deeply wrong that they were going about their lives, heedless of me.

I realized quickly, though, that no one cared about my pain. No one cared that I had just been raped by a man who was probably old enough to be my father. No one cared that I was an orphan, stranded far away from the only home I had ever known. I was just a thing to be bought and sold and used until my value was gone, and then I would be discarded. I now understood Tansy's advice to me. The girls—the
whores
, I forced myself to think, to say aloud—who enjoyed intercourse, who were skilled at it, kept their value longer than the ones who didn't.

My virginity was gone now, and I would never again earn such an outrageous amount from a man who wanted to spend time with me. I would have to figure out other ways of extending my value. I would have to force myself to learn to enjoy the act and to become skilled. I promised myself that not only would I survive, but I would flourish and I would return to London and leave this hellish place behind me forever.