Wilde, Jennifer (18 page)

The
sun had already vanished and it was twilight by the time we reached the yard.
The oak trees cast long purple shadows, and the air was a misty blue as the sky
darkened. Hawke stopped in front of the stables and called the boy who was
waiting for him to return. The slave stepped out to take the reins, and Hawke
dismounted. Then, placing a hand on either side of my waist, he swung me down
beside him. Crickets chirped as we started toward the house. The fireflies were
already swarming around the fig trees beside the back porch. The old house
loomed up ahead, a ghostly white spread with moving shadows from the oak
boughs. I felt pensive, sad.

"You
were looking for me, you said," I remarked quietly. "Was there
something you wanted?"

We
stopped in front of the back steps. A light burned in the kitchen, streaming
out on the porch, and I could see his face. It was still expressionless...
guarded, as though it required a concentrated effort to conceal any emotion.

"I'm
going to Charles Town tomorrow, Marietta. I thought you might like to come with
me."

I
was surprised, too surprised to reply, and Hawke waited a moment before
continuing. His voice was flat as he did. "You refused any kind of reward
for what you did when the copperhead bit me. I thought a trip to Charles Town
might suffice. I'm sure there are things you need to buy for the kitchen—sugar,
coffee, surely we're running low of something."

"I
thought you bought all the supplies."

"Ordinarily
I do."

"I—I
don't know why you'd want to take me. I don't expect any kind of reward for
what I did. I did it because—"

"Look,"
he interrupted, and his voice was edged with irritation now, "I'm going,
and you can go with me or stay here. It doesn't matter to me! I simply thought
the trip might please you. I'll be leaving at six o'clock in the morning—I'll
expect breakfast on the table at five-thirty. If you plan to go with me, be
ready!"

He
marched up the steps, strode across the porch, and opened the back door,
letting it slam behind him as he disappeared into the house. I could hear angry
footsteps moving through the kitchen and down the hall, and then there was only
the sound of the crickets under the steps. That sudden outburst of temperament
surprised me, and it pleased me as well. I wondered if that icy wall he had
built around him was finally beginning to crack.

The
sky was still a murky blue-black when we departed the next morning in the wagon
Hawke had used to bring me to Shadow Oaks. He owned no elegant carriage, no
jaunty rig, this creaking old farm wagon sufficed for all his needs. After
breakfast, he had given orders to Adam and Mattie regarding everything he
expected to be done while he was gone. Adam had been concerned about the
cotton, venturing the opinion that it should be picked immediately. Hawke told
him it could wait until he returned. The weather was hot and dry. There was
little chance of rain. A rainstorm, I knew, could destroy the crop, but we
would only be gone for three days, arriving back home on the afternoon of the
third. He wasn't really running a risk by putting off the picking for such a
short time.

Hawke
had not commented when he saw me dressed and ready to accompany him. I wore the
best dress I owned, a rusty brown cotton striped with thin gold stripes, but
even so, it had been laundered too often and was patched in a number of places.
My silk stockings were a pair I had saved from more affluent days, and the
brown high-heeled slippers showed signs of age. Hawke wore his work clothes,
although I knew he carried finer things in the bag in the back of the wagon.

The
sun began to come up as we rode down the rough dirt road, and by the time we
passed Magnolia Grove, Maud Simmons's place, the pink blush of dawn had given
way to bright sunlight. Slaves were working in the fields, picking the cotton
and dropping it in huge cloth bags they dragged along behind them. In the
distance I saw the plantation house, small but lovely with tall white columns
supporting a double verandah. On either side grew the tall waxy green trees
that gave the place its name, the limbs studded with huge white blossoms that
looked even more like wax. Magnolia Grove made Shadow Oaks seem even shabbier
in comparison, as did the other plantation houses we passed during the next few
hours. In almost every field the slaves were busily picking the cotton, and I
was beginning to wonder whether Hawke had been wise to leave at this particular
time, weather or no.

The
road didn't get any better. It was uneven, filled with holes, and I was
frequently thrown against him. Once I had to grab his arm to keep from tumbling
off the seat. There were stretches of road where tall trees grew on either
side, their limbs interlocking overhead to form a living green tunnel. The oaks
were dripping with the same grayish-green moss that hung from those back at the
plantation. Mattie had identified it as Spaniard's Beard. It was lovely,
trailing down over the road in lacy shreds, unlike anything I had ever seen in
England.

Derek
Hawke was in an uncommunicative mood. He had not spoken to me since we left the
house. I wondered if he was still angry with me because I hadn't burst into
paeans of joy when he told me about the trip. On three occasions he had to
steer the wagon over to the side of the road so that the carriages coming from
the opposite direction could pass. Each time the occupants stared openly, and I
knew that it wouldn't take long for word to get around that Hawke was on his
way to Charles Town with his indentured wench at his side. I felt sure that all
his neighbors already believed I was his bedmate, and I felt just as sure that
Hawke couldn't have cared less what they thought. I knew from what Maud had told
me that he was adamantly independent, a man unconcerned with the opinions of
others.

Around
one o'clock, when the sun was high, he pulled the wagon off onto a grassy slope
beneath some oak trees. We got out of the wagon, and I took down the basket of
food I had prepared before we left. While I spread a cloth and took out the
food, Hawke stretched out on the grass, on his back, his hands behind his head.
He still hadn't spoken to me, and I was determined not to be the first to break
the silence. Lolling there on the grass like that, he looked like some indolent
pasha, lids drooping heavily, wide lips slightly parted. I longed to throw the
iced tea in his face. Instead, I poured it into the glasses I had brought
along.

"It's
ready?" he asked idly.

"It's
ready." My voice was crisp.

"Hand
me a drumstick."

"You're
just going to he there and let me—"

"Right,"
he drawled.

He
rolled over on his side and propped himself up on one elbow, taking the
drumstick in his other hand. I waited on him like an Oriental handmaiden, doing
everything short of dropping grapes in his opened mouth, and Hawke enjoyed
every moment of it. Although I was fuming inside, I had to admit that I
preferred this lazy, languorous Hawke to the tight-lipped, stony-faced man who
had been sitting beside me all morning. I realized anew that I didn't really
know him at all. Behind that icy wall he ordinarily kept around him dwelled a
creature of mercurial temperament, capable of many moods. The Hawke stretched
out beside me now was a superb sensual animal. He gazed at me with slumbrous
eyes, as though he were contemplating long hours of unhurried love-making here
on the grass, beneath the boughs of the oaks.

"Are
you finished?" I asked.

Hawke
nodded, his dark gray eyes continuing in that disturbing fashion.

"Then
I suppose we'd better be going," I remarked.

"There's
no hurry. Charles Town's only three or four hours away. We have plenty of
time."

The
sun slanted through the boughs overhead in wavering yellow rays swirling with
dust motes, and the long grayish moss trailing down swayed slowly to and fro. I
packed the things away, nervous, my hands trembling, and his eyes never left
me. I knew full well what he was contemplating. It was there in his eyes. Derek
Hawke wanted me. I was no longer merely his chattel. I was a woman, warm flesh,
capable of satisfying the craving that plainly throbbed within him.

"You're
a beautiful woman," he said.

I
folded the cloth and placed it on top of the basket, not looking at him.

"A
woman like you could drive a man to distraction— if he let her, if he was fool
enough."

I
turned then and looked him full in the face, sitting there with my legs folded
under me, my hands in my lap. I sat very still, waiting, my pulses racing, the
back of my throat tight and dry. I longed for him to reach out to me, and yet I
was frightened, too, frightened by the sheer intensity of feeling.

Both
of us heard the horse hooves and rumbling wheels at the same time. Hawke
scowled, and the heady aura of sensuality vanished abruptly. He climbed to his
feet in one quick movement, shoving his hand against the front of his breeches
at the same time. He stepped over to the horses and began to fiddle angrily
with the harness, and I stood up and carried the basket over to the wagon,
placing it inside just as the carriage drove past. The man driving it waved.
Hawke nodded curtly.

"Get
in the wagon!" he said sharply. "We've wasted enough time."

He
was seething with anger, his face stern and stormy, lips set in a tight line.
He was angry with himself because he had almost been a "fool," angry
with me because I was the temptress who had almost made him abandon his good
judgment. He blamed me, I knew, even though I had done nothing to stir that
urgent lust that had swelled within him. It was unfair, terribly unfair, and I
resented his anger, though I dared not say or do anything that might make it
worse. I climbed into the wagon with as much dignity as possible, and Hawke
swung himself up beside me and took the reins in his hands.

We
rode mile after mile in silence. An hour passed, and then another, and though
the seething anger had vanished, he had never been more remote. Back there on
the side of the road I had seen a relaxed, lazy male animal, and once or twice
before I had sensed a curious vulnerability about this steely, unapproachable
man who sat beside me on the wagon seat. I wondered what he had been like
before he had thrown up his protective shell. Had there been openness and
warmth and charm? Would I ever know the real Derek Hawke?

I
loved him, and he knew that now. When I had turned to him there on the grass,
waiting, waiting for that awesome moment to pass, for him to reach out to me, I
had been unable to conceal the emotions inside. I knew that my love had shone
clearly in my eyes, and I knew that he had seen it and recognized it for what
it was. I had vowed he would never know, yet I hadn't been able to help myself.
In that instant before the sound of the approaching carriage shattered the mood
completely, my eyes had been filled with longing for him, with love, and though
he had given no sign, Hawke had seen.

For
better or worse, he knew, and while the knowledge was a weapon he could use
against me to inflict deep hurt, I didn't care. I had fallen in love with Derek
Hawke against my will, against all reason, and I knew in my heart that I would
never love another man. A strange destiny had brought us together, and though
destiny might separate us, there would never again be this beautiful and
tormenting emotion that was now as much a part of me as the blood coursing
through my veins. He was the one fate had decreed I love, the only one who
would ever be able to stir this feeling that quickened and glowed like some
radiance caught inside of me.

Another
hour passed. I began to smell the salty tang in the air and knew we were
nearing the coast. The road was wider, less rough than before, and the wagon
moved at a leisurely pace. There were many more carriages and wagons and, as we
drew nearer the city, fine houses and tall tropical trees I couldn't identify.
We arrived in Charles Town around six o'clock in the afternoon. It was much
larger than the port that had been my first sight of America. America might be
a vast wilderness, but Charles Town had an air of Old World charm and a curious
sophistication that was immediately apparent. The cobbled streets were lined
with shops displaying fine wares. In the distance I could see the masts of the
ships docked along the waterfront.

Hawke
left the wagon at the stables and led me down the street to the inn, one of a
row of beautifully constructed buildings already showing signs of age and the
damp sea air. A raggedly dressed black boy followed with our bags, setting them
down when we entered the inn and grinning broadly when Hawke handed him a coin.
The proprietor bustled forward to greet us. A plump, jovial soul, he seemed
surprised when Hawke asked for separate rooms. Scooping up our bags, he led us
up the narrow staircase to the second floor and down the hall, chatting
exuberantly about the various cargoes currently being unloaded on the docks.

My
room was small, with a low, beamed ceiling and creamy plaster walls. The double
bed was covered with a patchwork quilt, and there was also a wing-backed chair
and a dressing table with murky silver-blue mirror hanging on the wall above
it. The single window looked out over the harbor, and a door connected the room
with the one adjoining it. I could hear Hawke moving about, putting his things
away. Although the proprietor had observed his request for separate rooms, he
had seen fit to make any kind of dalliance easily and tactfully accomplished
were Hawke to feel so inclined.