“Excellent. I won’t have to pay you then.”
“He not that much a treat,” she said. She slipped out of her dress. She was naked beneath, her breasts pendulous and very large, her hips round and supple. Sophie turned away only to have Uncle Theo grab her arm. “I think you should watch, Sophia. Again, he might ask questions, make comments and—”
“I won’t!” she yelled in his face, jerked free of him, and ran from the cottage.
She heard Dahlia laughing softly, heard her say in an utterly happy voice, “Ah, look at how much bigger he get and all I do is touch him with my fingers! Ah, yes, massa, this nice boy be a treat.”
Sophie fell to her knees. She felt nausea roil in her belly but she wasn’t sick. She was beyond being ill. At first she would have been, but not now. No, too much time had passed. She’d seen too much. She hugged her arms around herself and rocked back and forth.
She heard Dahlia crying out in the cottage, heard her laughing and groaning and encouraging Ryder to come deeper into her, to caress her breasts. She wondered if Uncle Theo were standing there, watching. She knew he’d done it before. She wondered if he’d taken Dahlia to bed himself. She heard Ryder then. Heard him moan, heard him yell. Oh God, it was too much.
She crept away.
CHAPTER 5
RYDER WOKE SLOWLY. His first reaction was one of incredulity, for he felt both slightly drunk and sated. He also felt utterly relaxed, but strangely vague. But it was morning, he knew that, and he was drunk? He’d never been drunk in his life upon waking. It made no sense. Nothing made any sense at the moment.
He sat up in the strange bed, and held his head in his hands, trying to understand. He realized then that he was naked, and remembered where he was and what he had done here in this bed for most of the previous night. Actually, he should be completely exhausted but he wasn’t.
He’d been in this bed with Sophia Stanton-Greville.
God, she’d been incredible, her skills beyond the ability of any woman he’d ever bedded before. He rose slowly, shaking his head to clear it. The front door opened and an old female slave came in, giving him a wide toothless grin, saying in just short of a cackle, “Good morning, massa. Aye, ‘tis fine you be this mornin’.” He started to cover himself, but the old woman merely shook her head. She couldn’t have cared less if he was wearing a gentleman’s morning wear or was as naked as the Sherbrooke Greek statues he and his brothers had gawked at when they’d been boys.
She offered him a bath and breakfast.
True to form, Sophia had left him alone.
He was just one of many. She hadn’t cared enough to stay with him. Oddly it hurt and made him angry, in equal parts. He was just another man and she’d not cared.
He eased himself down into the bath. He tried to remember the previous night in detail, but most of the specifics eluded him, which was surely very strange. He remembered kissing her at first, then he could almost feel again her mouth caressing him expertly and he shuddered with the memory. He remembered her riding him hard and fast, his hands kneading her large breasts, caressing them, lifting them, and he’d screamed like a wild man when his climax had hit him.
She’d screamed as well. And she’d spoken to him, urged him on, telling him what she liked, telling him what a man he was. He remembered it quite clearly, her voice soft and deep. He remembered her breasts in his hands and how they’d thrust forward when she’d arched her back over him.
Ryder didn’t remember pleasuring her though, and that was odd for he hadn’t lied to her. He was an excellent lover. He never left a woman unsatisfied. But he hadn’t taken her in his mouth as she had him. He couldn’t remember kissing her either, except at the very beginning of the evening, and surely that was even more odd, for Ryder loved kissing, sliding his tongue into a woman’s mouth, stroking her, bringing her closer and closer as he used his hands on her body to heighten her pleasure.
Why hadn’t he kissed her? Was she so abandoned that she could climax with him simply inside her? He hadn’t even fondled her with his fingers, at least he couldn’t remember doing so. He shook his head again, shaking away a slight dizziness. He still felt mildly drunk and he hated it, and the damnable vagueness.
He rose from the bath and the old slave handed him a towel. She didn’t show any interest in his body at all. No, he thought, the anger building stronger than the drunkenness, she was so used to seeing naked men here—Sophia Stanton-Greville’s men—that she didn’t even pay attention anymore.
He dressed in freshly pressed clothes—good God, did the cursed woman think of everything?—and ate fresh fruit and warm bread. He shook his head at the offered rum punch. Jesus, he thought, watching the old slave drink it when she thought he wasn’t looking. The drinking here was beyond good sense and control. He should know, he’d done enough of it the previous night.
When he left a few minutes later, he turned in the doorway of the cottage and looked back toward the bed, now freshly made up by the old slave. The interior still smelled of sex.
He hated himself for what he’d allowed her to do to him. She’d obviously kept control the entire time. He again remembered her shriek of pleasure and wondered if it had been feigned. Odd, for he wasn’t certain and surely that couldn’t be right. Ryder knew women. No woman could feign pleasure with him. But she could have and he simply didn’t know. He remembered then the glasses of rum punch he’d drunk when he’d arrived the previous evening at the cottage. How delicious it had been, how cool and refreshing, and then all he remembered was the warmth he felt, the hard arousal, the urgency, the incredible sex that had gone on and on until he’d finally fallen like a good soldier in battle.
He walked to his horse. Sitting beneath a mango tree was Emile, chewing on a piece of turtle grass, his hat pushed to the back of his head.
“So,” Emile said only, rising, and dusting off his breeches. “Are you ready to go home?”
“Yes,” Ryder said. “I’m more than ready.”
Emile asked him no questions. As for Ryder, he was cold sober now, his head so clear it ached. The more he tried to remember each detail of the previous night, he found he simply couldn’t call it forth. Except that he’d spewed his seed in her mouth, his back arcing off the bed the release had been so powerful, that and her sitting astride him, riding him hard, her hands busy on his body, pushing him until he couldn’t bear it, and again, he’d screamed his release.
Something wasn’t right. In fact, something was very wrong. He was still frowning when he and Emile rode down the long Kimberly Hall drive. Ryder listened with half an ear to the rhythmic humming and singing of the slaves as they worked in the fields.
“Emile,” he said finally, “have you ever seen a crocodile in the middle of the road in the mangrove swamps?”
“Yes, I have. It’s terrifying, really.”
“Something is very wrong,” Ryder said.
“What do you mean?”
Emile was dancing around the issue. He didn’t want to call Sophia Stanton-Greville a whore if Ryder was now enthusiastic about her. He was uncertain; he was trying to be diplomatic.
From one instant to the next, Ryder realized the truth, clear and shattering. It was her breasts! He’d fondled Sophia’s breasts two times. He knew the texture of her flesh, the size of her, her weight, his hands could even now mold themselves in the shape to hold her breasts.
The woman who’d taken him twice the night before wasn’t Sophia Stanton-Greville. The breasts were all wrong. It was that simple. If it hadn’t been Sophia, then it had been another woman, and that meant something that made him want to howl in fury. He turned to Emile and said, “There was something in the rum punch she gave me last night.” There, he’d said it aloud. And it was true, of that he was certain. But he couldn’t tell Emile he was basing everything on the size and feel of breasts.
Emile was clearly incredulous. “You mean to say she drugged you? Good God, why?”
“I woke up alone, just as you told me would happen. What was strange was that I was still feeling drunk. Something else even stranger is that I can remember certain things, but all the details of the night are gone from my memory.” He shook his head for there was something of a flaw in his theory. “If there was something wrong, if she has indeed been drugging men’s rum punch, why wouldn’t her other lovers have come to realize it and said something or confronted her with it?”
“I would say that you are the man with the most experience of all the men she’s taken to that cottage. Perhaps the others simply remembered the pleasure and didn’t question a thing.”
“Perhaps,” Ryder said. “Perhaps.” He was thinking that more than likely, none of the other men had ever seen and caressed Sophia Stanton-Greville’s breasts as he had. Just that other woman’s, and thus the fools didn’t realize the truth. Perhaps he wouldn’t have either, at least at first.
He laughed aloud then. She’d be brought down all because of her breasts.
At five o’clock that evening, Ryder realized there’d also been a man there. He could actually hear his voice, but he couldn’t remember the words he’d said. Did that make any sense? It had to. Who the hell had stripped him naked? He certainly couldn’t remember taking off his own clothes, much less Sophia Stanton-Greville’s.
She’d drugged him, seduced him, then brought in another woman to make love to him. It was clear enough. Ah, yes, and there was Uncle Theo who’d come in to see to his clothing. It must have been Burgess, there was no one else.
Ryder rose from the chair, a very grim smile on his mouth. He bathed and dressed carefully. He was coldly and calmly furious. He was going to drop in at Camille Hall. He had no doubt that he wouldn’t be invited to stay for dinner.
Sophie wanted to eat in her room but Jeremy came bursting in upon her. “What’s the matter, Sophie?”
Always he was afraid that she would become ill and die as their parents had died. She hastened to reassure him. “I’m just fine, love. I’ve quite changed my mind about eating here in my room. Give me a moment and I’ll comb my hair.”
Jeremy sat in a chair watching her brush her hair, chatting all the while.
“ ... Uncle Theo had Thomas take me with him to the north field today, just for two hours, not more, because of the heat. It was fascinating, Sophie, but several times Thomas used his whip on a slave. I didn’t think it was necessary but Thomas said he had to because they were lazy and had to taste the whip to remind them what would happen if they didn’t work. He kept calling them lazy buggers.”
Thomas was a cruel monster. Sophie hated him. She fastened her hair at the back of her head with a black velvet ribbon. She rose and looked in the mirror. In the old pale yellow muslin gown she looked about sixteen. The only discordant note was the faintly greenish bruise on her left cheek. She had no intention of putting on the powder. It didn’t matter. Besides, in the dim evening light, no one would notice. And if Uncle Theo did, why it would probably give him pleasure.
She said over her shoulder, “If you were master here, Jeremy, would you keep Thomas as your overseer ? Or another man like him who would whip the slaves?”
Jeremy chewed on his lower lip, swinging his legs, his energy overflowing despite his mental contemplation.
“I don’t know,” he said at last. “Uncle Theo seems to think Thomas is very good. He trusts him and allows him to do just as he likes. It’s just that—”
“What?”
Jeremy shrugged and rose. “Well, I’ve known most of the slaves since we came here over four years ago. Most of them are my friends. I like them and they like me. I don’t understand why you would want to hit someone you liked. And it’s so hot in the fields, Sophie. I know I wanted to rest after a while. They never get to rest.”
She ruffled his hair and kissed his brow, risking a little boy’s horror at such a motherly act. Jeremy squirmed away from her and out of her bedchamber. “Come on, Sophie!”
She drew to a stop at the bottom step of the stairs. She stared, her heart pounding. There, standing in the large open foyer, was Ryder Sherbrooke, looking like an English gentleman from his brushed pale brown hair to his glossy Hessian boots.
Uncle Theo had just welcomed him in.
Ryder looked up and saw her. He blinked, he couldn’t help it. The tart in the red gown from the night before bore no resemblance to this young girl standing there, mouth agape, staring at him as if he were the devil himself come to claim her for the fourth circle of hell.
Theo Burgess turned at that moment and a spasm crossed his face. Damn the girl, she looked like a virgin of fifteen, certainly not like she should look. He wanted to hit her for her defiance; he disregarded the fact that Ryder Sherbrooke was entirely unexpected.
“Hello, Sophia,” Ryder said very calmly. “Your uncle has seen fit to take me in. I am to dine with you. Ah, and who is this?”
“I’m Jeremy, sir. I’m Sophie’s brother.” Jeremy walked with his clumsy gait, his hand outstretched.
Ryder smiled down at the boy and shook his hand. “How do you do, Jeremy? I hadn’t realized Sophia had such a large younger brother.”
“Sophie says I grow faster than the swamp grass. I’m nine years old, sir.”
“He’s a good lad,” Theo said, his voice testy.
Sophie was standing there, frozen, waiting. Would Ryder look at Jeremy with contempt or pity? She didn’t know which was worse. People had looked at him with both and it was all horrible. Ryder had been a perfect gentleman thus far but she didn’t trust him, not an inch. Perhaps he hadn’t yet realized that Jeremy wouldn’t grow up to be perfect like him.
Jeremy beamed up at the man he recognized immediately as a real gentleman. He was young and handsome and well dressed, and there was a very nice smile on his face, a smile that reached his eyes. Jeremy also realized that he must be here because of Sophie. He turned to his sister and called out, “He’s having dinner with us, Sophie. Isn’t that grand?”