Lost Lady (James River Book 2)

THE SHIP SAILED WITH THE TIDE. REGAN, TOO EXCITED TO eat, too curious to leave the quarterdeck even for a moment, was unaware of the way David’s face whitened or of his constant swallowing. When he excused himself, she smiled and stayed where she was. Noisy seagulls flew overhead as the men ran the sails up. The rolling of the ship reminded her that they were about to set out on a journey, that with the moving of the ship she was starting a new life.

“You look happy,” Travis said quietly from beside her.

She hadn’t been aware of him coming up the stairs. “Oh yes, I am. What are those men doing? Where do those stairs lead to? Where are the other passengers? Do their rooms look like ours, or is everyone’s a different color?”

Travis gave her a grin and fell to telling her what he could about the ship. It was a twenty-four-gun brig, the guns needed to keep away pirates. The other passengers lived in the lower deck, amidships. He didn’t tell her about the close airlessness of their quarters or the strict rules governing the passengers’ infrequent exercise. Only the two of them and Wainwright were allowed to come and go freely.

He explained why nearly all ships were now painted a shade of ochre. Before America’s revolution, all ships had been swabbed with linseed oil, which made the wood darken with each coating. The older the ship, the darker it was. During the war, the English made a point of attacking the darker ships, until someone decided to paint all the ships the color of a newly built one.

Travis pointed to several patches of red paint and said that almost all the interiors, especially around the cannons, had been painted red so that the crew would be used to the color and not panic when, during a battle, they were surrounded by the red of blood.

“Where did you learn all this?” Regan asked eagerly.

“Someday I’ll have to tell you about my time on the whaler, but for now let’s get something to eat. Unless, of course, you don’t feel like eating.”

“Why shouldn’t I want to eat? It’s been a long time since breakfast.”

“I was afraid you might have a touch of what your little friend had—seasickness. It’s my guess that half the passengers below are spilling their guts into chamber pots.”

“Really? Oh, Travis, I must see if I can help.”

He caught her arm before she could reach the stairs. “There’ll be plenty of sick people later, but for now you’re going to eat and rest. You’ve had a long day.”

Maybe she was tired, but also she was sick to death of his orders. “I am not hungry, and I can rest later. I will go to help the other passengers.”

“And I say you will obey me, so you’d better make up your mind.”

She glared up at him, refusing to move.

Leaning down, his face close to hers, he said quietly, “Either you do what I say or I carry you downstairs in front of the entire crew.”

A feeling of helplessness came over her. How could she reason with this man? What could she do to make him understand that it was important to her to feel useful?

As he moved his hand toward her shoulder, she pivoted on one foot and sped down the stairs, through the door, and into the cabin. Sitting down on the window seat, she tried hard not to cry. It wasn’t easy to keep to her dreams of someday being a respected lady when she was ordered about like a child.

It was some time before Travis came back to the room bearing a tray laden with food. Quietly, he set the table before going to sit by her. “Supper’s ready.” He tried to take her hand, but she drew it away.

“Damn it!” he exploded, jumping up. “Why do you sit there looking like I’ve just beaten you? All I said was I didn’t think you should miss your supper and do without sleep to help a bunch of people you don’t even know.”

“I know Sarah!” she gasped. “And you did not say I should rest; you said I had to rest. You never suggest anything; you always demand everything. Did it ever occur to you that I have a mind of my own? You held me prisoner in England, wouldn’t so much as allow me out the door, and now you hold me prisoner in this little room. Why don’t you tie me to the bed or chain me to the table? Why not be honest about what I am to you?”

Several emotions flickered across Travis’s handsome face, but the predominant one was confusion. “I told you why you couldn’t stay in England. I even asked that boy you were with if he’d known you. The ship hadn’t set sail then, and if he’d told me, I could have taken you to your family.”

More tears came to Regan’s eyes. To think she’d thought Travis was jealous, and all he’d actually wanted was another chance to get rid of her. “Excuse me for being such a burden to you,” she said haughtily. “Perhaps you should throw me overboard and save yourself so much trouble.”

Astonished, Travis could only look at her in bewilderment. “If I live to be a thousand, I don’t believe I’ll be able to understand your reasoning. Why don’t you eat something, and then if you want I’ll take you below, and you can hold sick heads over pots all night.”

He looked so sweet, his big eyes so liquid, pleading with her, trying his best to please her. How could she explain to him that what she wanted was the freedom to choose, the right to make her own decisions? She wanted to prove to herself and to her uncle that she was worth something.

Accepting his hand, she let herself be led to the table, but she couldn’t seem to pull herself out of her dark mood. She pushed her food around, barely tasting it. She tried to listen to what Travis was telling her but couldn’t seem to keep her mind on it. She kept thinking of her whole life as someone’s prisoner, never allowed to make even a single decision.

“Drink your wine,” Travis said gently.

Obediently, she drained the glass and felt her body relaxing. It seemed natural when Travis swept her into his arms, held her so securely, and carried her to the bed. While he was undressing her, she was awake only in a haze. Even when she was naked and he was kissing her neck, she only smiled and fell into a deeper sleep.

Seeing that she needed sleep more than anything else, Travis snuggled her under the covers before taking a cigar and going up to the top of the quarterdeck to smoke it.

“All settled in?”

Travis turned to the captain behind him. “We’ll make it, I guess.”

The captain watched Travis as he leaned on the railing, a long cigar hanging out of his mouth. “What’s wrong, boy?” he asked seriously.

Travis smiled. The captain and Travis’s father had been friends for years, until cholera took the older man. “What do you know about women?”

“No man knows much,” the captain said, trying not to smile, glad there was nothing seriously wrong. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet your bride. I hear she’s a beauty.”

Studying his cigar, Travis took a moment before answering. “My bride, yes. I’m just having some trouble understanding her.” He wasn’t a man to share confidences, and this was as much as he could say. Straightening, he changed the subject. “You think that furniture will be safe in the hold?”

“It should be,” the captain said. “But what do you need more furniture for? You haven’t added a wing to that mansion of yours, have you?”

Travis chuckled. “No, at least not until I have about fifty kids to fill all the rooms I already have. The furniture’s for a friend. I did buy some land, though. I’ll put in more cotton this year.”

“More!” the captain gasped before gesturing toward the deck in front of them. “This is all the space I need. I couldn’t keep up with—how many acres of land do you own now?”

“About four thousand, give or take a few.”

The captain gave a snort of disbelief. “I hope that little bride of yours is a good housewife. The place took all your mother’s talents, and you’ve nearly doubled it in size since your father died.”

“She can handle it,” Travis said confidently. “Good night, sir.”

In their cabin again, he undressed thoughtfully before climbing into bed and drawing Regan to him. “The question is, can I handle her?” he murmured just before he fell asleep.

It took Regan exactly twenty-four hours to learn that Travis was completely correct about what an awful job it was dealing with seasick people. From early morning until late at night she did little more than wash vomit from people and belongings. The passengers were too sick to hold their heads over the porcelain basins she held toward them and too ill to care what happened to the contents of their stomachs. Mothers lay in their narrow bunks, their babies crying beside them, while Regan and two other women cleaned, tried to comfort, and worked long, hard hours.

As if the seasickness weren’t enough, the condition of the passengers’ accommodations appalled Regan. There were three dormitories, one for married couples, and two for single men and women, and the discipline enforced by the crew to keep unmarried men and women apart was strict. Sisters were not allowed to speak to brothers, or fathers to daughters, and each worried about the other in these first few days of illness and misery.

In each dormitory were many narrow rows of hard, small bunkbeds. In the close aisles were the passengers’ belongings: trunks, boxes, parcels, baskets, containing not only clothes and what goods they needed for the New World but also the food for the voyage. Already some of it was beginning to decay, the smell aggravating the passengers’ nausea.

Regan and the other women ran in and out of the women’s cabin, trying to get over the trunks, having to walk up and down, over and around for every step they had to take.

By the time she returned to her own cabin, which by contrast looked like a room in a palace, she was more exhausted than she’d ever imagined she could be.

Travis put down his book immediately and gathered her into his arms. “Was it difficult, love?” he whispered.

She could only nod against his chest, so glad to be near someone healthy and strong, glad to be away from the squalor and poverty she’d seen today.

Relaxing against him, half-asleep, she was hardly aware when he put her in a chair and went to answer the door. Even when she heard water splashing, she didn’t bother to open her eyes. After all, she’d heard little else all day when she’d washed clothes, babies’ diapers, and dirty chamber pots.

Smiling deliciously, she relaxed as Travis’s hands began to unbutton her dress. It was nice to be taken care of instead of the other way around. When he gathered her naked form in his arms, she was pleased to be going to bed, but when her bottom hit the hot water, her eyes flew open.

“You need a bath, my smelly little mate,” he laughed at her surprise.

The hot water, even if it was sea water, felt wonderful, and she leaned back, letting Travis wash her.

“I don’t understand you,” she said softly, watching him, feeling his hands, soapy and strong, run over her body.

“What’s to understand? I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

“A few weeks ago I would have said a man who kidnapped people was evil and should be put in jail, but you….”

“I what? I kidnap pretty young ladies, ravish them, yet I don’t beat them? Not too often anyway,” he smiled.

“No,” she said seriously. “You don’t, but I believe you’re capable of anything. I don’t understand a man like you.”

“And what kind of man do you understand? Your little Wainwright? Tell me, how many men have you gotten to know? How many times have you been in love?”

He wasn’t prepared for her answer.

“One man,” she said quietly. “I’ve been in love once, and I can’t imagine it ever happening again.”

Travis studied her expression for a moment, the way her eyes softened with a faraway look, the gentle way her mouth curved up at the corners.

One moment Regan was thinking of Farrell, how he’d asked her to marry him, and the next she was sputtering as Travis tossed the soap into the water in front of her eyes.

“Finish it yourself, or wait for your lover to come and do it,” he growled before slamming from the cabin.

Smiling, feeling she’d at last made him jealous, she left the tub and began to dry herself. She thought that perhaps it was good for Travis to realize that he wasn’t the only person in her life, that maybe other people existed in the world. When she got to America and they parted ways, perhaps he’d not be so sure she couldn’t make it on her own, maybe even find a man like Farrell, someone who would love her and not think she was an ignorant child.

Climbing into bed, she suddenly felt very lonely. Farrell didn’t love her; he’d wanted her for her money. Her uncle didn’t want her either, and Travis, this strange, arrogant, kind man, made it clear he only wanted her for the moment. Alone, tired, hungry, miserable, she began to cry.

When Travis pulled her into his arms, she clutched at him, scared that he’d leave her too. “Hush, sweet, be quiet. You’re safe now,” he whispered, trying to soothe her, but when her lips fastened to his, he no longer thought of comfort.

She had no idea if it was being close to the illness all day or her thoughts of being alone, but she was ravenous for Travis. She didn’t think about the fact that she was a prisoner or that she should at least be a reluctant lover. Her only thought was that she needed him desperately, needed for him to hold her, to love her, to make her feel as if she were part of the world and not a useless, unneeded appendage.

Boldly, she put her fingers into his shirt opening, sending a button flying across the room. The hair on his chest was so masculine, reminding her of his maleness. Her fingertips explored, not gently but firmly, roughly even, rubbing the texture of his skin, feeling it grow hot beneath her touch.

Tossing her to the bed, he pulled back to remove the rest of his clothes. His eyes were ablaze, his mouth full and hot. As he turned to sit on the edge of the bed to pull off his boots, Regan was left with his broad, muscular back to her mercies. Her teeth nipped his shoulders while the tips of her breasts lightly and electrifyingly grazed across his spine. Lips soon followed down the deep curve of the bone, kissing, caressing, tasting his flesh. Thumbs digging into his sides, fingertips on his ribs, she stroked the back of him with the front of her. The deep indentations of muscle, his strength, now so quiet under her touch, were heady, making her surge with her own sense of power.

She kissed his earlobe, nipping it sharply, then gave a low, purring laugh. In one swift movement, Travis turned, pulled her into his arms, and was on top of her. She was as eager as he was and more than ready for him.

Travis was blinded by her forwardness, for once not holding back in consideration of her delicate sensibilities. He treated her with all the fire and passion he felt, thrusting hard, massaging her buttocks with his hands, holding her closer and closer.

When at last their release came in a tempest of rapture, they slowly, slowly began to give way to a mass of exhausted, shaking, weak flesh.

“What have you done to me?” Travis gasped, holding her so close he threatened to smother her.

Regan only clutched at him, too tired to think. As she easily fell into a deep sleep, she was unaware of Travis leaning over her, watching her, touching her hair, pulling the sheet a little closer about her. But even in her sleep, she was aware of his arms around her, of his rugged body near her, of the sweetness of his warm breath on her ear. Stirring, she opened her eyes, gave him a sleepy smile, gladly accepted his soft kiss, and then smiled again as he lay his head beside hers and she felt his body relax into sleep.

The next day was a repeat of the same hard, smelly work of helping seasick passengers. In the late afternoon, Travis told her to go to their cabin and rest or she wouldn’t be any good for anyone. His tone of voice, always ordering her around, caused her to tell him just what she thought of him.

“You could be helping instead of merely lounging about the deck,” she snapped.

“Lounging, am I?” Travis smiled, that half-smile, half-smirk of his that infuriated her.

For the first time she noticed his dress of soiled, sweaty cotton shirt and loose britches reaching to his knees, tucked into soft leather boots. A wide black-leather belt circled his trim waist. Suddenly, several questions were answered for Regan, such as how Travis could afford a private room. In payment, he obviously had to work for his passage.

“How can I help?” he asked. “Although, if you expect me to wipe dirty mouths, I won’t.”

If Travis had to work for his passage, so did she, and the idea of rest wasn’t possible. “This morning two of the upper bunks collapsed. I’ve talked to the crew, but they just laughed at me.”

“They probably laughed because they don’t know which end of a hammer is which. What else?”

“We need someone to take care of the older children. I thought maybe you could find Sarah Trumbull. I haven’t seen her for days.”

“Sarah’s busy,” he said succinctly, “but maybe I can help with the other problems.”

A great burden left Regan’s small shoulders because she knew that Travis would keep his word.

“Keep looking at me like that, and I’ll build separate houses for each passenger right here on deck.”

Giggling and feeling much better, she went back to her duties.

In a very short time, Travis appeared at the door of the women’s cabin with carpentry tools in a box. Some of the women squealed in protest because they were in various states of undress, but it didn’t take Travis long to make them feel comfortable. He laughed with the women and told them the men were all dying for them to come on deck and make the voyage less tedious. In spite of what he’d said to Regan, he held one woman’s head over a bowl and tenderly wiped her mouth. He diapered two babies and rearranged several heavy trunks so there was more walking room, all while he repaired the broken bunks, checked the others, and reinforced several more.

When he left, most of the women were smiling, and it felt as if fresh air had just blown through the stuffy, stinking dormitory.

“Oh my,” sighed one woman whose baby Travis had changed. “Who was that glorious man?”

“He’s mine!” Regan said, so loudly and with such a challenge in her voice that the women laughed, making Regan blush.

“You don’t have to be embarrassed, honey. Just thank the Lord every night for being so good to you.”

“Maybe she has other things on her mind at night,” someone else said loudly.

Regan was almost grateful when one of the women began to groan and she could run away and escape the women’s teasing. But even as she held a pan for the woman, she began to feel angry. He was flirting with all the women, right in front of her! No doubt he liked having all the women drool over him, liked being the only man allowed into the single women’s cabins. Allowed! Surely Travis Stanford never did anything so common as ask permission for anything he wanted to do.

Slamming down a pitcher of water, Regan seemed to grow angrier by the moment. Of course, he had no reason to treat her as a lady since all he knew of her was in bed. The big, crude American had no idea how to treat a woman except as something for his own use. To him all women were the same—whether they were sick in bed or dressed in a gown of satin, he seemed to think they were all made for his pleasure.

Near sunset, she went on deck to wash the earthenware basins. There, surrounded by children, were Travis and two sailors showing the boys and girls how to tie knots. One girl, about twelve, seemed to be knotting a piece of fabric while a two-year-old sat on Travis’s lap, absorbed in the intricacies of the puzzle of rope Travis was creating. He smiled and waved at Regan before returning to the children.

Haughtily, she put her nose in the air and returned below to the stifling cabin, gritting her teeth against the fact that even the children found him irresistible. She’d told the women he was hers, but she was fully aware that she had no power over him, that she was his captive plaything, and that when they reached America he would dispose of her quickly and no doubt pick up another woman—one not so used. With suspicious eyes, she began to look at each one of the women in the big cabin, wondering if one of them would be her successor.

By the time she was ready to leave the dormitory, she was very angry. Her uncle had said she was mealy-mouthed, an embarrassment to him, but many things had happened to her in the last few weeks, and she was changing.

The cabin she shared with Travis was empty when she reached it, but as she stood watching the stars through the big window, the door opened.

A pewter mug sailing directly toward Travis’s head made him duck quickly. “What the—?” he began.

Regan grabbed another mug from a wall cabinet. “You enjoyed flirting, didn’t you?” she accused. “You liked having all the women fawn over you. ‘Oh what a darling man,’ they all drooled.” The second mug grazed his shoulder.

As she grabbed the third one, Travis crossed the room and held her hand. Again, that half-amused little smile was on his face. “Don’t let your temper get the best of you. Please try to remember that you were once an English lady.”

His patronizing tone, added to the fact that he was the one who’d made her fall from being a lady, sent blind rage coursing through her veins. “I am sick of you!” she gasped as she slammed her elbows back into his ribs.

She got some satisfaction from his grunt, but before he could recover she kicked him in the shins.

As he backed away from her, rubbing his shins, his expression was one of bewilderment. “Wouldn’t you like to talk about this? What’s got you so riled?”

“Riled?” she mocked in her crisp accent. “I am angry because of the way you assume that you have the first right of everything in the world. Did you enjoy the way the women looked at you with great adoring eyes? It was disgusting that you used the babies to get to the women. Are you planning to kidnap one of them when you’re through with me?”

“I might,” Travis said, his jaw set, a tiny spark of fire in his eyes. “At least one of them might be more grateful for what you have. Why don’t you ask who’d like to trade places with you?”

“You are the most vain, arrogant animal ever created!” she seethed. “Did it ever occur to you that I might not want to be held prisoner or that other women might not either? Am I supposed to be grateful that you hold me against my will, drag me onto a ship that’s sailing for a country I despise, and threaten to tell everyone our true relationship if I do not remain with you?”

“I told you why I couldn’t release you in England.” His voice was quite low. “I’ve shown you every kindness, given you every stitch on your back, yet you’re still too much of a romantic to see the truth. Can’t you remember what it was like on the docks when those men came after you?”

It was too much like the things her uncle had said. Someone was always taking care of her, always throwing it into her face. “I’m not grateful,” she said quietly. “And I do not want anything more from you. You needn’t worry that I’ll be attacked on board ship, so I’ll leave you now and begin my stay with the single women.” Looking down at the simple muslin dress that Sarah had just finished for her last night, she said, “When I get to America I will try to earn enough money to repay you for this dress. Perhaps you can sell the others.”

Turning, her chin up, back straight, she started for the door.

It took Travis a moment to realize that she meant to leave him, and she was just stubborn enough to do it. Without thinking what he was doing, he grabbed the back of her dress. With Regan going one way and Travis pulling the other, the thin muslin quickly split from top to bottom, landing in a small heap at Regan’s feet.

Instantly, his look changed from anger to desire, his eyes raking her hungrily, feasting on her heaving breasts well exposed above the low-cut chemise.

“No,” she whispered, trying with all her might to pull away from his mesmerizing gaze.

His arm, strong and powerful, went around her waist, pulling her to him, bending her backward into an arc.

Weakly, she fought against him, wanting so much to defy him, to prove to him that she was her own person, but his touch, his lips on hers, drove her senseless.

“You’ll do what I say, love,” Travis growled, lifting her off the floor, his lips nuzzling her neck. “You’re mine for as long as I want you.”

Closing her eyes, leaning her head back, giving her body completely to his touch, she had no idea of escaping this man who controlled her so easily. When she heard the sound of tearing cloth, and felt her chemise give, she began to struggle once again.

“Mine,” Travis whispered. “I found you, and you’re mine.”

There was no time for her to think as Travis pushed her back against the wall, her small body pinned there by the strength and size of him.

His kisses became ravenous, as if he meant to devour her. Her own breath was coming faster and faster as her hands clutched at his shoulders, fingertips digging into his flesh through his shirt, trying to pull him close enough to crush her.

One of Travis’s hands lustfully traveled down her bare hip, stroked her thigh, and lifted her leg so that it rested on his hip. Eagerly, Regan grasped his body with her legs, her ankles hooked behind him, her weight supported by him as he stroked and caressed her bottom.

His hands moved excitingly, teasingly, driving her to a passionate frenzy. When his clothes fell from the lower half of his body, she didn’t know. Only when he lifted her, his hands about her waist, and set her down on his manhood did her eyes open, but only for an instant.

She was completely in his power, unable to move on her own, her back to the wall, her legs clutching his hips, as he began to lift her, to control her movements, guiding her. Feeling his body against her, the undulations of his hips under her thighs, the driving force of him threatened to drive her insane. Clutching his hair in her fingers, she pulled as Travis leaned harder into her, threatening to break her, to merge his flesh with hers, to consume her. With his might he easily picked her up and lowered her, again and again, faster and faster, until she screamed under the pressure of her sweet torment. Crushingly, Travis’s mouth came down on hers as he collapsed against her, her legs like a steel vice about him, her body shuddering, weak and helpless, sated, exhausted.

Gradually, she began to become aware of where she was and who she was, her body pliant, boneless against Travis’s proud muscularity. He was kissing her damp neck lovingly, his arms under her bottom, supporting her. Carrying her like a child, he took her to the bed and laid her down as if she were the most precious, most delicate substance ever created.

Tiredly, as if he too had no bones left, he removed his shirt and lay beside her. “No supper tonight either,” he murmured, but there did not seem to be any regret in his voice. With his last bit of strength, he pulled Regan to him, their skin sticking together from their mutual sweatiness.

“How could I ever let you leave me?” he whispered before they both fell asleep.