James River - Lost Lady Part 4

The noon meal was brought to them, and Regan was glad the session was over because she was getting tired.

"But we have only started," Madame Rosa said. "The furrier is coming this afternoon with the milliner, the cobbler, and the glovemaker. And Mademoiselle must be measured for everything."

"Of course," Regan whispered. "How could I have forgotten?"

As the afternoon wore on, she ceased to be astonished at anything. The furrier brought pelts of sable, ermine, chinchilla, beaver, lynx, wolf, and angora goat, and she chose linings, collars, and cuffs for the coats she'd already selected. The cobbler took samples of cloth, planning to dye a pair of soft, heelless slippers to match every outfit, and he described the walking boots he would make. The milliner and Madame Rosa coordinated hats and clothes with the glovemaker.

At dark, everyone's energy began to fade, especially Regan's. She felt bad at the thought that the day's work would come to nothing because no American could possibly pay for all the clothes she'd ordered. She told Madame Rosa she was to submit everyone's bills to Travis before a pair of scissors was raised, that she should see the money in her hands before she started filling the order. The dressmaker smiled politely and said she'd have it ready first thing in the morning.

When she was finally alone, Regan slumped into a chair, weary from the long day and the constant feeling of guilt. All day she'd known she was playing a game, but the tradespeople were going to be very angry when they learned that their day's work would go unpaid.

By the time she heard Travis's heavy footsteps on the stairs, she was feeling quite low—and it was all his fault. The moment he opened the door, she threw her shoe at him, hitting him on the shoulder.

"What's this?" he grinned. "I thought tonight you'd at least be a little glad to see me. You're always complaining because you have no clothes."

"I did not ask you to do anything about my clothes! You have no rights over me whatsoever and especially not to take me to your barbaric country. I will not go, do you hear me? I am English, and I will stay in England."

"Where all your family and friends are?" he asked sarcastically. "I've just spent another day trying to find where you've spent your life, and I can find nothing. d.a.m.n them!" he said, running his hands through his hair. "What kind of people could discard a child like you?"

Perhaps it was the tiredness from not sleeping well and the exhausting day, but her eyes filled with great, crystal tears. She'd been so angry for the last few days that she'd had no time to think about her feelings at hearing Farrell's disgust at the idea of marrying her and her uncle's declaration that he detested her. For days she'd lived in a dreamworld of hoping they would rescue her, but no doubt Travis had gone to their door. Had Farrell and her uncle told him they didn't know her?

Before she could speak, Travis pulled her into his arms. Pushing him away, she tried to protest. "Leave me alone," she whispered feebly, but even as she attempted to pull away from him, he held her tightly until she buried her face in his chest, and the sobs began tearing through her body.

Travis wasted no time before he lifted her into his arms and then sat in a chair with her, cradling her like a child. "Go ahead and cry, kitten," he said softly. "I guess if anyone deserves to, it's you."

His holding of her, this stranger who made love to her and saw that she was cared for, when the people who should care for her denied her existence, made her cry harder. Worse than anything was the end of her dreams of being rescued by Farrell, of once again seeing the man she loved. Now she'd never even have a chance to prove to him that she could be a good wife; now she was going to be dragged off to America, and they'd never even know she'd gone.

As her sobs finally began to quiet, Travis stroked her damp hair. "Want to tell me what you're so unhappy about?"

She couldn't possibly tell him about Farrell. "Because I'm a prisoner! " she said as firmly as possible, pulling away from his shoulder.

Travis continued stroking her hair, and when he spoke his voice was full of patience and understanding. "I think you were a prisoner before I ever met you. If you hadn't been, you wouldn't have been discarded like so much rubbish."

"Rubbish!" she gasped. "How dare you call me that!"

Bewildered, Travis smiled at her. "I didn't say you were rubbish, only that someone had treated you as such. What I can't understand is why you seem to want to return to someone who treats you like that."

"I*I*no one*" she sputtered, tears beginning again. He had such a crude way of stating everything.

"It's not so bad being an orphan," he continued. "I've been one a long time. Maybe we belong together."

Regan looked up at him, thinking that she couldn't imagine this man belonging to anyone. No doubt, in spite of what he had said, he often kidnapped young girls and held them prisoner.

"I don't think I like what you're thinking," he warned. "If you're getting any ideas, let me warn you that I take care of what belongs to me."

"Belongs to you!" she exclaimed. "I hardly know you!"

He smiled just before he brought his lips down on hers and kissed her with such tenderness, such longing, that Regan found her arms going about his neck. "You know me well enough," he said huskily. "And get it through your head that you are mine."

"I'm not yours! I'm* " she trailed off as he began to kiss her neck with little nibbling bites, and Regan sighed as she bent her head to one side.

"You are a temptress," he laughed, "and you're playing havoc with my work schedule." Firmly, he pushed her out of his lap. "As much as I'd like to stay with you, I have business to attend to, and I'm afraid it will take me most of the night. Did you know we sail day after tomorrow?"

Head lowered, she didn't answer him. She felt like such a fool because she'd reacted to him so quickly and so totally. Day after tomorrow! she thought. If she was ever to escape his hold over her, she must do it very soon.

"No goodbye kiss?" Travis joked, standing by the door. "Nothing to keep me warm out there all alone?"

Grabbing her other shoe, she threw it at him, but this time he ducked before it hit him. He was laughing as he locked the door behind him and went down the stairs.

At least tonight she was too tired to stay awake, but the bed did seem to get larger each night.

She woke to the quiet thunder of what could only be Travis attempting to tiptoe about the room. Keeping her eyes closed, she pretended to be asleep, even when he leaned over her and kissed her cheek. When he seemed to have left the room, she drowsily listened for the now familiar turn of the lock, and when it didn't come she sat bolt upright in bed. After rubbing her eyes twice, she was sure that what she saw was real—the door was wide open.

Not another second was lost as she jumped out of bed, slid the velvet dress over her head, and grabbed her shoes. Ever so quietly, she hugged the door with her back as she left the room and went onto the stair landing. Never having seen the inn except for the inside of one room, she was startled to see how isolated the room was—alone at the head of narrow, steep stairs, and, from the smells, at the bottom seemed to be the kitchen. Craning her neck until it threatened to break, she saw what was unmistakably Travis's leg and high boot near the foot of the stairs. But even as she began to lose hope, a clatter of horses and carriages sounded outside, and a man's voice cried for help. With great happiness, she saw Travis run for the door.

Within an instant she was down the stairs, through the nearly empty kitchen, where the few employees were intent on the activity outside, and finally out into the bright sunlight of the street.

There was no time to spend on the fact that her feet were bare, because she knew Travis would discover her escape very soon. For now she had to put time and distance between them if she was ever to manage her escape.

In spite of her good intentions, her feet began to hurt too badly to ignore them much longer, and people were beginning to notice her. Slowing down for a moment, she saw a dark alleyway between two buildings, and she made her way there, crouching down between several horrible-smelling wooden fish crates. I must think! she commanded herself, because she knew that without a plan she could never gain her freedom.

Sitting on one of the crates, she slipped on her shoes, tying the laces about her ankles. As she did so, she calmed her racing heart and began to consider her alternatives. She needed somewhere to go, a place to hide until she could get a job, and especially a place to hide until that insane American left the country.

Lost in thought, she wasn't aware of the shouts in the street until she was practically looking at Travis, his legs spread wide, hands on hips, his profile to her. It was minutes before she realized that he didn't see her, that he was only shouting orders to the people in the streets. The idea that he'd give orders to strangers renewed her determination to escape this man. Making herself as small as possible, she crouched down among the boxes, praying he wouldn't see her.

Even when he turned and ran down the street, she didn't relax or move, because she felt he wasn't one to give up. No, Travis Stanford was too sure he was right to ever give a thought to anyone else's opinions. If he'd hold someone prisoner, he'd certainly not let that prisoner escape without a fight.

Remaining in her stiff, uncomfortable position, she tried to come up with a plan. First she'd have to get away from the docks, and the way to do that was always to keep the sea at her back. Smiling, she thought that shouldn't be difficult to do and was sure she had half her problem solved. The other problem was where to go when she was away from the docks. If she could find her way back to Weston Manor, maybe Matta, her old maid, would know of some place Regan could go.

Hours and hours seemed to pa.s.s, yet the sun was still bright, the noise of the docks still loud. Using all her powers of concentration, she tried to ignore the cramps in her legs, and the ache in her back. Twice she saw Travis go by, and the second time she was close to calling out to him. Perhaps it was the pain in her aching body, but she seemed to remember all too clearly the last time she'd been alone on the docks. Of course, then she'd been wearing only her nightgown, and how could she expect to be treated as a lady when she was dressed as a woman of low morals? Now, wearing the elegant velvet dress, everyone would recognize her as a lady, and they wouldn't dare touch her.

Smiling, her confidence somewhat restored, she tried to twist her hair into some semblance of order.

Yesterday the French dressmaker and her a.s.sistants had worn their hair short, a la greque, and Regan wondered if possibly she should cut hers. Maybe it would give her an added air of sophistication in her new life—whatever that was to be.

Her musings made the time pa.s.s, and when she saw that the sun was setting she felt as if she were about to embark on a great adventure. She had escaped the awful American, and she was free to go wherever she wanted.

Slowly, painfully, she left her crouch, shaking her tired legs, and letting the blood return to them as she put her weight on them. As she stood erect, she realized that her feet were cut and the sores inside her shoes were covered with dried blood, which broke apart when she took her first step.

Pulling her courage together, she stepped toward the darkening street. A lady, she reminded herself. She must carry herself like a lady and not let a little thing like lacerated, swollen feet make her limp. If she kept her shoulders back, her spine straight, her chin high, no one would bother her—no one would dare molest a lady.

Chapter 5.

News of a pretty young bit of fluff walking about the docks unescorted spread like fire through a dry forest. Men who were too drank to walk somehow managed to drag themselves out of a stupor and stagger in the direction of the young woman. An entire shipload of sailors just in from a three-year voyage grabbed bottles of rum and ran toward where someone said there was a whole pa.s.sel of women just waiting for them.

Bewildered, trying very hard not to let her fear show, Regan did her best to ignore the ever-increasing crowd of men gathering around her. Some of them, grinning toothlessly and stinking of fish and worse, stuck out filthy, trembling hands to touch the velvet of her dress.

"Ain't never felt nothin' so soft," they whispered. "Ain't never had me no lady before."

"Think ladies do it the same way as wh.o.r.es?" Faster and faster she began to walk, weaving away from the hands and the bodies placed in her way. No longer did she think of keeping the sea to her back; all she thought of was escape.

The men of the docks seemed to toy with her just as they had the night she'd been wearing her nightgown, but it was when the young, virile, hungry sailors from the ship found her that the relatively gentle games ceased. When the sailors realized there was only one woman and not fifty as they'd been told, they grew angry, and their anger was directed at this one frightened-looking female.

"Here, let me at her. I need more than a feel of her pretty dress," leered one vigorous young man, reaching out and grabbing the shoulder of Regan's dress.

The fabric tore all the way to the top of her breast, exposing one fat, soft mound that made the men laugh delightedly. "Please stop," Regan whispered, backing away from the sailors, only to have three pairs of hands lift her skirt and slip up the back side of her legs.

"She may be little, but there's a lot of her in the right places."

"Stop larkin' about. Let's have at her."

Before Regan was aware of what was about to happen to her, just as she seemed to hear Travis's words about men forcing her to do what they had done together, one of the sailors gave her a firm push, and she fell backward over the men behind her. With one futile effort at a scream, she tried to right herself, but the men under her, scrambling away, held her under an ocean of grabbing, exploring hands. Over her, grinning wildly, were the sailors.

"Now, let's see what's under those pretty skirts."

The man put his hand on her skirt, and Regan kicked him in the face, sending him sprawling. Her arms were pinned above her head by the men behind her, and the second after she kicked her ankles were grabbed, legs pulled wide apart.

"You won't kick me, missy," laughed another sailor, grabbing the edge of her skirt.

One second he was above her, smiling at her terror, enjoying her struggles against the hands that held her, and the next he was flying through the air, and grabbing his shoulder, which was quickly reddening. The sound of the shot seemed to come after the sailor flew away.

Two more shots rang across the tops of the men's heads before they began to react to something besides their vicious sport.

Regan, still held by the men, was first aware of their silence, and when she felt their grip loosening she kicked out, freeing one leg. The next moment an angry, violent Travis stepped over her, and before the men could comprehend what was happening, Travis grabbed arms, necks, belts, whatever was available, and sent sailors and waterfront riffraff flying through the air.

Shaking with fear, Regan lay still as, one by one, every hand was taken from her body. Travis straddled her hips, his back to her, a pistol in each hand. "Anyone else like to try for the lady?" he challenged.

Backing away, looking like the untamed, cowardly sc.u.m they were, they muttered at Travis for spoiling their fun, but no one openly opposed the dangerous-looking American.

Sticking the pistols into his belt, Travis turned and looked down at Regan, watched her panting with fear, and quickly noted that most of her clothes were intact. With one swift gesture he bent and threw her over one shoulder like a sack of flour.

The breath nearly leaving her, Regan slammed against the back of him. "Put me down!" she demanded.

Travis gave her b.u.t.tocks one hard smack, which was fortunately padded by the thick velvet, before nodding to the two other men who still held pistols on the cowering crowd, and started back toward the inn.

One of the sailors, the one Regan had kicked in the eye, yelled after Travis that Yanks certainly knew how to treat women, and the others laughed, glad they'd had no fight with the angry man. The sailor Travis had shot limped away, back toward the inner structures of the waterfront.

Regan didn't say another word to Travis as she bounced along in the awkward, embarra.s.sing position, and she was glad her long hair hid her face from pa.s.sersby, especially people at the inn. By the time he'd climbed the stairs and reached the room they'd shared, she was ready to tell him what she thought of his treatment of her, that he was little better than the ruffians on the street.

But her courage left her when Travis slammed her into the bed so hard she dove through a foot of down-filled mattress, striking the rope lacing below. Gasping for air, she surfaced, pushed her hair out of her face, and looked up into Travis's livid, raging temper.

He didn't give her a chance to speak. "Do you know how I found you?" he said through clenched teeth, the muscles of his jaw working vigorously, hands on hips. "I hired men to walk the waterfront and to report to me when there was a commotion. I knew if I waited you'd show up, and when you did they'd be all over you." Leaning forward, he snarled at her, "You lasted longer than I expected. What did you do, hide somewhere?"

Watching her face, he saw that his guess had been correct. He threw up his hands in frustration while taking heavy steps across the room. "What the h.e.l.l am I going to do with you? I have to keep you locked up to protect you from yourself. Don't you have any idea at all what the world's like? I told you what would happen if you left here, but you didn't believe me. No, instead you had to get yourself nearly raped and possibly killed. The first time I found you, you were being chased by men, and now, through your own fault, it's happened again. Did you think it would be different the second time?"

Holding the torn top of her dress together, she toyed with the luscious velvet of the skirt. Her mind was working hard to block out what had just happened to her, to make it seem like one of her dreams. "I thought because I was dressed like a lady, they wouldn't*" she whispered.

"What! " Travis bellowed, then sank into a chair. "I cannot believe anyone could truly, actually think—." He cut himself off to look at her, so small, probably unaware that she was shivering, a long sc.r.a.pe down the side of her face, and once again he felt possessive about her. "There's no question about it now. Tomorrow you leave with me for America."

"No!" she gasped, her head coming up. "I can't possibly. I must stay in England. This is my home."

"You want a home where you're attacked every time you step out the door? You want a repeat of what happened to you today?"

"This isn't the real England," she pleaded. "There are beautiful people and places full of love and friendship and*"

"And what?" he asked, hard. "Money? Money is the difference between the film just outside here and the gentility you seem to adore, the gentility that seems to have kicked out an innocent little thing like you. It looks to me like the lovely people you know are about even with the ones tearing your clothes off a while ago."

Slowly, great tears began to form in Regan's eyes, and as she looked up at Travis he saw her sadness.