The Light in the Darkness (17 page)

Grey slowly moved across the sand and walked into the water, pausing in front of her so close that she could feel his breath against her forehead. She stared up at his face, her eyes wide with alarm and with another emotion she could not identify, and saw passion and anguish warring
together in his features. It was obvious that he wanted her, that he was drawn to her against his will, yet that he despised himself for his weakness.

He put his arms around her and bent to kiss her, tasting the water of the James on her lips.

Her arms encircled his neck and she returned his kiss, opening her lips to let her tongue meet his.

The water eddied around them, the waves lapping at their bodies, as they moved closer together.

And then Grey broke away. “No,” he said hoarsely. “I won’t do this to you a second time.”

Jennifer blinked as tears sprang to her eyes at his rejection. “I—I don’t understand,” she whispered.

“I hurt you before,” Grey said tightly. “I used you. I swore I wouldn’t do it again.”

“I thought—” Jennifer broke off, realizing how foolish her thoughts had been. For a fleeting moment she had believed he wanted her, not Diana, not a memory. For a brief, wonderful moment it had seemed that there were no obstacles between them.

Her thoughts were written clearly on her face, and Grey hated himself. He did want her, violently, and he could not deny it, even to himself. But Jennifer wanted more than sex. She was very young and very fragile, and like all very young girls, she would want love. Love was beyond his capacity to give.

He deliberately crushed her hopes.

“I don’t want you,” he said. “After what happened between us last time, you ought to know better. Why would I want someone like you, when I could have virtually any woman in the colony?”

Something about his words rang hollow to her. She lifted her eyes and studied his features. Despite the harsh words, his eyes were still fixed on her nipples, which peeked out between the wet strands of her long hair. Jennifer smiled faintly as she realized her feminine power for the first time.

He wanted her, and he was unable to entirely disguise his desire.

“You’re lying,” she said calmly but with absolute certainty. “You do want me, but you don’t
want
to want me. Look at me, Grey.” She raised her arms, lifting her dripping hair so that it no longer fig-leafed her upper body, so that her breasts and erect nipples were raised as well. She heard his sharp intake of breath. “You want me, not Diana.
I am not Diana
.”

Grey swallowed convulsively and took a step toward her as if drawn by an irresistible force. Jennifer shivered with joy and anticipation as he bent down and whispered into her ear. “Jennifer,” he murmured.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Go to hell.”

Jennifer stood frozen on the bank of the river, watching in blank amazement and baffled hurt as he stalked, dripping wet, from the river and strode stark naked toward the house, carrying his clothes over his arm.

T
hey rode through the woods the next day, though by tacit consent they refrained from mentioning the incident at the river. The truth was that Jennifer could think of little else, but she did not have the courage to bring up the subject, and Grey never alluded to it. Neither of them wanted to disturb the fragile balance of their relationship by bringing up unpleasantly awkward subjects.

The daily rides had become a custom, something both Jennifer and Grey looked forward to, although either would have died before admitting it to the other. Jennifer enjoyed her husband’s presence. It was pleasant to know that he had come to consider her a real person, an entity with thoughts and feelings of her own, thoughts that he sometimes displayed interest in. When he had first brought her to Greyhaven and sneered at her as she sat in the dust, she would have sworn the day would never arrive when her husband would treat her as a human being.

Oddly enough, Grey had only begun to show an interest in her after that dreadful night when he had seduced her. She was certain that her original impression had been correct, that he must feel remorse for what he had done. There seemed to be no other likely explanation for the sudden alteration of his behavior.

Though she spent an hour or two with him almost every day, she still felt that she knew very little of the man she had married. When they spoke at all, they spoke of
mundane topics, such as the weather, or the horses that they rode. Jennifer longed to start a real conversation, but she had absolutely no idea how to go about it.

The heat continued unabated. The sky was a hazy blue, untouched by clouds, and the green branches of the oaks and maples stretched out above the path, providing a cool refuge from the sun. Jennifer’s dappled mare trotted placidly along beside Grey’s bay stallion. She rode easily now, almost expertly, Grey noticed, feeling a small stab of pride that he ruthlessly suppressed. The weed he had plucked from the muck of the tavern had grown into a flower so quickly and effortlessly that it was easy to believe that she had been a flower all along.

Of course, he did not voice his thoughts to Jennifer. He almost never spoke his thoughts directly, but she sensed that he no longer held her in contempt. He did make an effort to speak to her every now and then; at times he even attempted to be kind. (These occasions were generally a miserable failure, but she appreciated the effort.) But she wanted more than a husband who discussed the likelihood of rain with her. She wanted a husband who told her his innermost thoughts, who shared his feelings and hopes and dreams with her.

She wanted Edward. She was married to Grey.

Out of the silence, she said abruptly, “What was Diana like?”

The silence went on.

At last Grey spoke, in a harsh voice as stony as his features. “Why do you ask?”

Jennifer swallowed nervously. “She … she meant a great deal to you. I only wanted to know why.”

“I loved her. Why else?”

“Why did you love her?”

Startled by the simplicity of the question, he turned in the saddle to face her. “I’ve never thought about it,” he responded honestly. “Why does any person love someone else? All I know is that to me she was all that was perfect.”

He thought Diana was perfect
, Jennifer thought with
some annoyance,
and only recently has he decided I’m human.
Her curiosity getting the better of her, she asked, “How did she die?”

The muscles along Grey’s jaw tightened reflexively. “I’m certain Catherine has told you the story.”

“I know she was murdered,” Jennifer conceded cautiously. “But beyond that, no one has told me anything about it.”

“For the good reason,” Grey said tonelessly, “that it is an ugly story. She was beaten viciously … her throat was cut.…”

“Oh, God,” Jennifer breathed. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“She was also raped,” Grey went on as though he hadn’t heard. His tone was wooden. “I—I was the one who found her body. She was lying in red mud. Her blood had soaked into the soil, and all her beautiful hair was caked with it. I still remember sitting next to her body, in the red mud—”

“Shh,” Jennifer interrupted, reaching across the distance that separated them and laying her fingers gently on the taut muscles of his arm. He was breathing heavily, his face distorted with pain and horror as he relived that long-ago scene. “I didn’t mean to bring up such an awful subject, Grey. I’m so sorry.” Privately she thought that if Grey were mad, as so many people seemed to believe, there was little wonder. If she had found someone she loved mangled and destroyed in such a hideous way, she would certainly have gone mad herself.

Grey looked at her concerned face, and the raw pain in his silver eyes vanished almost instantly, to be replaced by the harsh indifference that he wore like a garment. “Don’t concern yourself about me, Jennifer,” he grated. “I’m all right.”

“Sometimes I think you’re never all right,” Jennifer said honestly. A wave of horror and embarrassment washed over her. Dear God in heaven, what had possessed her to say such a thing? To prevent Grey’s inevitable angry rejoinder, she went on hastily, “But what was Diana like?”

Grey eyed her narrowly for a few moments, apparently unable to decide whether he should do battle with her or not over her last remark. Evidently he decided on the more peaceful alternative, for he merely shrugged, saying mildly, “I told you already.”

“You said she was perfect,” Jennifer persisted. “Forgive me, Grey, but that tells me very little. What did she like to do? What were her interests?”

“Well …” Greys forehead wrinkled. “She was a very accomplished lady,” he said at last, sounding oddly hesitant, as though something were puzzling him. “She painted excellent watercolors … and she played the harpsichord well enough, I suppose.…”

“What did she truly love to do?”

Grey began to look annoyed. “I told you. She was a perfect lady. She excelled in everything.
Everything
.”

Recognizing the veiled menace in his tone, Jennifer subsided into silence. Grey rode quietly alongside of her, thinking. For the life of him he could not remember what Diana had really enjoyed doing in her spare time. As he had told Jennifer, she had excelled in all ladylike pursuits, but he could not recall that she had particularly enjoyed any one of them. Unlike Diana, Jennifer pounded with enthusiasm at the keys of the harpischord until Grey, closed in his study, sometimes thought he would have to take an ax to the damned instrument. Jennifer was still a student of the harpischord, not a master, yet she obviously delighted in playing music.

Jennifer also enjoyed riding, he reflected, glancing again at her perfect seat and the easy way in which she controlled her mare. Diana, on the other hand, had not particularly cared for any pursuit that might have exposed her to the sun’s rays. As a consequence, Diana’s skin had been as white as newfallen snow, in sharp contrast to the golden hue of Jennifer’s skin. Jennifer enjoyed walking through the forest and breathing its clean, fresh air as much as he himself did.

He stopped that line of thought abruptly, recognizing
that he was engaging in comparisons between Diana and Jennifer … and that he did not like some of the conclusions he was drawing. Of course Diana had preferred the indoors, he thought. Diana had been a lady born and bred, not a tavern wench masquerading as a planter’s wife. And if he could not think of any outstanding features she had possessed besides her beauty—well, over seven years had passed. Despite his best efforts his memories had grown clouded with time. But no matter how dull she might sound when he tried to describe her to Jennifer, she had been a paragon, a woman beyond compare. There had been nothing dull about her. She had been exciting, vivacious, lovely.…

It was a relief for Grey to see the house as they emerged from the forest. Soon Madeira would help him suppress his disloyal thoughts, and his uncomfortable, growing awareness that Jennifer was as beautiful and exciting as Diana had ever been. He did not want to think about Jennifer. He wanted to concentrate on the only thing that mattered—

Diana.

As they rode toward the house, however, Jennifer reined in her mare abruptly. “What in the world is going on?”

Grey heard the sound too. Sighing, he brought his stallion to a pawing stop. “It sounds as though one of the slaves is being whipped,” he said with no hint of concern in his voice.

“Whipped?” Jennifer turned and stared at him with sharp disapproval. “Catherine told me that the slaves are never whipped.”

“They are only whipped for serious transgressions, such as stealing or attempting to run away,” Grey explained, thinking longingly of his Madeira. He started his stallion toward the house, but to his annoyance, Jennifer turned her horse toward the slave quarters. He had little choice but to follow.

A young black man knelt on the ground. He had obviously just been whipped, for blood oozed from his back.

Jennifer dismounted and walked across to confront the overseer. “Why are you whipping this man?” she demanded.

“I caught ’im stealin’ from the smokehouse, I did,” the overseer told her. He glanced up at Grey, still mounted on his stallion, and his aggressive tone immediately altered into an unctuous whine. “I only gave ’im ten lashes, sir.”

“You see?” Grey ignored the overseer and spoke impatiently to Jennifer. “Stealing is a serious crime. At some other plantations this man might get a far worse punishment. Some planters administer up to sixty lashes for stealing.”

“You can hardly blame him for stealing food,” Jennifer snapped angrily, “given what you feed your slaves.”

Grey stared blankly at her, as if she had suddenly begun speaking in tongues. “What do you mean, madam? I make certain every slave gets generous portions of cornmeal and salt pork. That is, after all, what slaves typically get to eat.”

“How would you like to live off corn bread and salt pork?” Jennifer retorted scathingly.

Grey scowled. She had a way of making him consider things from different perspectives. It was a knack she had that particularly annoyed him. For the thirty years of his existence, first at the old house and now at Greyhaven, slaves had gotten the same treatment and lived on the same diet. This was how it had always been.

And yet, faced with her angry green eyes, he felt a peculiar compulsion to defend his actions.

“They are permitted to garden,” he started again. “They can supplement their rations of cornmeal and salt pork with whatever they grow. I don’t think—”

“For heaven’s sake, Grey,” Jennifer interrupted sharply. “They work from dawn to dusk. How much spare time do they have to garden? I ate better than they do at the ordinary. And I ate very poorly indeed, compared to how you eat.”

“Are you suggesting I feed my slaves at my dinner table?”

“I am suggesting,” Jennifer said, oblivious to the fact that she was committing the unforgivable sin of challenging his authority before servants and slaves, “that you feed your slaves decently. And that you not permit them to be whipped.” She gestured angrily at the bloody welts that marred the young man’s brown skin. “How is this different from permitting my uncle to beat me?”