Lynna's Rogue, Page 8

  After a heartfelt welcome home from his mother and sister complete with hugs, kisses and tears of joy, Joshua quietly and with great trepidation, climbed the winding stairs. He dreaded entering the room that reminded him so much of death with that sickly sweet smell of infection that had assaulted him upon his first visit. During his stay at Christmas, he had ordered the servants to remove every floral arrangement, hoping, unsuccessfully, to rid the house of the smell.

  Joshua both dreaded and anticipated this reunion with his father. He was sorely afraid he would be hard pressed to control his emotions and might allow pity to slip into his voice, an emotion he knew his father would deplore. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and was left standing with his mouth gaping open. Was that really his father propped up against the headboard of the bed, going through a neat stack of papers? From the waist up he resembled the man Joshua remembered.

  “You are looking well, Father.” He could not keep his amazement at his father's rapid recovery hidden. What could have brought about such a drastic change, when on his last visit he had appeared within an inch of slamming death’s door behind him?

  Jeremiah, engrossed in his work, hadn’t heard him enter. He looked up, a broad smile playing across his still handsome face at the sight of his son. “Good to have you home, son! Good to have you home!” His deep voice echoed through the house. “Your mother said you were home at Christmas, but, unfortunately, I cannot say that I remember.”

  “Yes, Father, I was home. And I must confess I am left truly amazed by your recovery from then until now.”

  “It goes without saying that I feel much better, son. I guess anyone can see that. The truth is, I moped and pouted and just plain felt sorry for myself for months on end, and where did it get me? Nowhere. Then the strangest thing happened. I had a dream one night, the most vivid dream. That dream opened my eyes, son, and I awoke the next morning and realized my life was far from over.” Jeremiah gazed out the window at the fluffy white fields of cotton stretching as far as the eye could see. “Yes, I have had ample time to think about how I am going to live the remainder of my life.”

  “And did you come to a conclusion?”

  Jeremiah laid his papers on the bed and clasped his son’s hand. “The Good Lord saw fit to take away my legs. I do not question his logic, nor do I ask why, for in exchange, he gave me a double dose of willpower to continue living. He gave Jake the knowledge to build that fine chair with wheels and a wooden ramp leading outside, so even your mother or sister have no difficulty pushing me outside to feel the warmth of the morning sun.” He smiled a completely serene smile. “God has His master plan already laid out, it is our choice whether to accept it or waste precious time fighting it. I chose to accept it.”

  “So all my worry was for naught?” Joshua moved to examine the sturdy wooden chair with wheels. “I should have known. Nothing can keep a Jordan down for very long.”

  “Truer words were never spoken.” Jeremiah laughed heartily, motioning Joshua to a chair. “Sit a spell, son. You look tired. By the way, Jake Almond, the man you hired, is a fine overseer, just fine.” He handed Joshua a handful of papers. “I have been over his record-keeping with a fine tooth comb, and having talked with the man at length, I have no complaints. Although, I would confess a desire to see the fields for myself. Not that I do not trust him completely, mind you, I do, but seeing is believing, and I’d like to see the fields and talk to the hands myself.”

  “First thing tomorrow morning I’ll hitch up the buckboard and we will tour the fields.” Joshua was eager to speed his father along the road to recovery. “Are you up for that?”

  “Fine, son, that will be fine,” Jeremiah answered drowsily as he tried to keep his heavy eyelids open and failed. “I look forward to it.”

  Joshua quietly rose from his seat and left the room in a much better humor. He heard his father's soft snores as he closed the door and chuckled to himself. He knew from years of living under his father’s roof that in a short while, the man’s snores would rattle the windows.

  Shortly before midnight, revived after a few hours’ sleep, Joshua silently crept from the house, heedful not to wake his mother. He would hate to lie to her about his destination. Some things were better left unsaid.

  The night was bright under the full moon, causing a wicked smile to play across his finely chiseled features. Good. He liked to see what he was getting. He laughed out loud in the peaceful night, startling the nocturnal inhabitants of the still woods and causing a rabbit to scamper across the road in front of him, as he recalled some of the females he had undressed and damn well wished it had been dark. Chuckling to himself, he wiped his hand across his forehead as if he could wipe such unpleasant memories from his mind.

  Much to his surprise, Suzanne was in attendance as promised, and floating near the water’s edge with a smile of dreamy anticipation on her face. He could just make out her slim, naked figure under the rippling waves created by her kicking feet. She could not be called voluptuous, lacking the curving slopes he found so irresistible. But she had one advantage over every other woman in Charleston tonight. She was here.

  “Come join me. The water is heavenly,” she purred, after watching him watch her for several minutes.

  “I wasn’t sure you would come.” Joshua removed his clothes and waded in to join her.

  She darted just out of his grasp and swam to the other side of the pond. Please. Spare me your coquettish games. He was tired from a long day and had no patience for her pretenses of being the coy, innocent virgin, when they both knew the complete opposite to be true. He remained, calmly treading water, beckoning her with those sensuous green eyes that the majority of women, including the one in the water, were powerless to resist.

  She swam back to him, stopping an arm’s length away. Their eyes locked, with his having the power to melt her like candle wax beneath a flame. Slithering into his embrace, she moved her arms around his slippery neck, searching for his mouth with eager lips.

  When their nude bodies molded together, Suzanne trembled from the sheer force of the contact as his hands on her buttocks pulled her closer against him. His tongue explored every crevice of her mouth before leaving a searing trail down her neck to her small breasts. Her head fell back and she moaned as his teeth nibbled and gently tugged at the rigid peaks until she thought she might expire if he did not release her from the sensuous torture. “Take me now, Joshua! Please!”

  Never one to refuse an eager female, Joshua pressed her yearning body against his hard flesh, entering her slowly. He had not expected a virgin, and he did not find one. Instead, he found a woman well versed in the art of lovemaking. Caught up in the moment, they both slipped underwater and came up, gasping for air. Lifting her easily, he carried her to the pond’s edge and laid her down on a soft, green carpet of moss. “A person could drown out there if they were not careful,” he whispered lazily against her hair.

  “But what a way to go.” She smiled seductively before climbing atop of him. “Oh, Joshua, what a heavenly way to go.”

  As the sun was beginning its daily ascent into the sky, Joshua was heading home. After an adventurous night — for Suzanne was definitely an adventure — they had slipped contentedly into a satisfied sleep under a brilliant moon with a chorus of bullfrogs playing their nightly concerto in the background. Realizing he was more tired now than he had been last night, he would get no respite today. He was eager to take his father on an inspection of the fields, and this wasn’t the first night he had forfeited sleep for the sake of a lady, or rather in Suzanne’s case, a willing female.

  “One must keep the opposite gender satisfied,” he mused aloud as he urged his steed toward home. And unless he missed his guess, the one he had just departed was definitely that, for the time being at least.

  At home, Joshua strode up the steps of the verandah to find his sister Malinda sitting in a rocking chair, sipping coffee. She glanced up, a frown wrinkling her pretty brow as Suzanne's perfume assault
ed her from several feet away.

  “You are making a colossal mistake, big brother.”

  “A mistake? Care to elaborate, Sis?”

  “Suzanne.”

  “Suzanne?”

  “Do not feign ignorance with me, Joshua.” Her face flushed crimson. “I know where you were last night and … what you were doing. I can only hope you will have the common sense not to fall for her… feminine wiles.”

  “I have the common sense not to fall for any female’s feminine wiles, especially Suzanne’s. You should have more faith in your big brother than that.” He grinned broadly, taking her coffee and draining the cup.

  “Oh, I have faith in you. It’s Suzanne that concerns me. She has made her purpose crystal clear to me and anyone else who will listen when she chatters, which, by the way, is constantly. She plans to marry you, Joshua and she confessed that she has no intention of waiting for the sanctity of the marriage bed to….um… to…well…you know.”

  “Enough about me.” Joshua could not tolerate having a conversation about sex, of all things, with his baby sister. “Am I going to be allowed to run this plantation in peace or will I be too busy shooting eager young suitors from our door?”

  “Joshua,” she cried and blushed prettily. “How you do run on. However, I, unlike my dear sibling, am particular about who I spend my time with.”

  “Touché, dear sister.” Joshua hoped to set the record straight once and for all. “But, please, do not worry overmuch about me, Malinda. I am a grown man, no cataracts blurring my vision, and am fully capable of seeing the lovely Suzanne for who she truly is.”

  “I must confess I am relieved to hear you say that, because the girl is trouble waiting to happen, and she has had her sights set on you since the night of the Christmas Ball. How I wish you had never even attended that ball.”

  Joshua pulled his sister to her feet for a heartfelt hug. “I have missed you, Malinda. And do not be such a worrywart. Have a little faith in your big brother, would you?”

  “I will try. You just be careful.” Then she grinned, returning his hug and retrieving her coffee cup for a refill.

  After touring the fields with Joshua and being satisfied that Jake had contributed his best efforts to the plantation, Jeremiah was noticeably tired and ready to return home. They were discussing the rising price of cotton when Jeremiah shouted, “Stop the buckboard, son!”

  “What is it?” Joshua was apprehensive as he pulled the reins and brought the horses to an abrupt halt. “What has you so alarmed, Father?”

  “I don’t rightly know, son.” Jeremiah was rubbing his eyes as if they were playing tricks on him, or he was having the hallucinations that most everyone accused him of. “I just saw a fleeting glimpse of white dart through the woods. At least, I thought I did.”

  “I didn’t see anything…” Joshua began, before he was interrupted by the tinkling laughter of a child.

  “You seen me!”

  Both men could only stare in wonderment at the fairy-like creature that darted out of the woods to stand in the dirt road before them, arms akimbo. Her eyes were black; her hair was also as black as a raven’s wing, and reached down below her hips in a wild profusion of curls. Her skin was deeply tanned from many days spent outside, she was barefoot, and she wore a most unusual garment.

  Jeremiah recognized her at once as the child he had shoved from the path of the massive oak that had severed his legs. He would never, as long as he lived, forget those captivating black eyes. Thank the good Lord above the child was very real and not some figment of his imagination. “What is your name, child?”

  “Mariah.”

  “You must be Jake Almond's daughter,” Joshua assessed, smiling down at her. “I recall Jake telling me he had a wife and daughter.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Relief was evident on Jeremiah’s features. He knew all too well what the slaves were whispering behind his back about angry spirits and other such malarkey. Huh! He would show them. But he had to admit the child was dressed in a most unconventional fashion. “Tell me, child,” Jeremiah could not resist asking. “Just what is that you are wearing?”

  Mariah lovingly fingered the soft white silk trimmed with scalloped lace. “Ain't it just perdy? Miss Malinda said for me to leave it in a box until I growed up, but it fits me just fine now, don’t it?”

  Malinda's hand me down chemise hung just below her knees, somewhat the worse for wear, but no less treasured. “She gave me some real perdy dresses the last time I was at your house, but they was all too big. This is the only one what fit right.”

  Another great weight was lifted from Jeremiah as he listened to the child's gay chatter. He had not imagined the giggling, childlike laughter erupting from Malinda's room during some of the worst days of his recovery. He had simply chalked it up to hallucinations at the time, but it had been Mariah. Her appearance also explained the dream.

  After the accident, he had been lying in bed, tossing, turning, and imagining pain in legs and feet that were no longer attached to his body. He had been pondering the quickest way to end his miserable existence when someone had silently entered his darkened room. “Who’s there?” he remembered calling despondently.

  “Why do you just lay in that bed all the time feeling sorry for yourself and making Malinda and the rest of your family suffer with you? If this is how you plan to spend the remainder of your days, why not just shoot yourself and get it over with?”

  When he did not seem eager to answer her, she continued. “But I reckon what I really come to say is thank you for pushing me out of the way of that giant tree that was about to fall on me. I didn’t tell Pa ‘cause he would most likely take a switch to me if he found out I was in the woods when they was cutting trees after he has done told me time and time again not to go there. Since you done me a kindness, I will do you one in turn.” A mischievous twinkle lit her eyes. “Do you want me to bring you my Pa’s squirrel gun so you can put yourself out of your misery?”

  “Get out of my room!” he had cried into the still night. “Get out, do you hear? Leave me be!”

  Hearing his cry, Patricia had rushed to his side, and after some time, convinced him he had been dreaming. But now, after hearing the child's voice, he knew Mariah had been the messenger that God had chosen to snatch him from the jaws of death.

  “What were you doing in the woods?” Jeremiah questioned the little minx.

  “Hunting dragons!” She shielded her eyes against the bright morning sun to peer into the dark forest.

  “Oh, hunting dragons. Well, should you happen upon any, I am sure my son here would be more than happy to slay the fire-breathing beast for you.” Jeremiah patted Joshua on the shoulder. “My son is a dragon slayer from way back. He hunted them quite frequently as a child, as I recall.”

  “I shall slay my own dragons, thank you kindly,” she was quick to inform them. “My aunt says a girl must learn to fend for herself. She is very beautiful and very wise and I aim to be just like her when I grow up. I won’t ever need a man to protect me.” She laughed and waved to them over her shoulder as she scampered into the shaded woods. “I can take care of myself!”

  “I have no doubt that you can.” Joshua laughed and his father was quick to agree.

  Chapter Seven

  The sight of Magnolia House nestled among the fresh spring greenery brought a loving smile to Lynna's face. Sitting on a stump by the side of the woods, fragrant with pine, cedar, oak and magnolia trees, she was lost in thought until Suzanne's rather unladylike bellow from the balcony shattered her reverie. “Lynna, would you be a dear and come up here, please?”

  Leaving her daydreams of a land far away behind, Lynna walked the short distance to the house, wondering what Suzanne wanted this time. She paused inside the door where the bright morning sun reflected the labors of the household servants, who had waxed and buffed the floors until they shone. Running her finger along the edge of a polished, carved oak table, she knew there was not a speck of dust to
be found. If there was the person responsible for leaving it would have to deal with the wrath of Jasmine, self proclaimed ruler of dis heah roost, and none of the household servants relished that prospect.

  The focal point of the house was the gently curving staircase. Rich mahogany banisters wound endlessly upward, passing shining crystal wedding cake chandeliers with hundreds of candles, imported from China. To the right were twin parlors of gold and rose. After dinner, the ladies would be escorted to the rose parlor for tea, while the men enjoyed their cigars and brandy in the gold parlor. A marvelously carved sliding door separated the two parlors, but it did not drown out the men’s raucous laughter that often caused the ladies to blush as they realized the topic of their conversation. To the left was the dining room. The table, chairs, buffet, and server were rich mahogany, inlaid with satinwood. A corner cabinet displayed the Canton china and Waterford crystal that had been in the Fletcher family for generations.

  Lynna had seen it all hundreds of times, but she never failed to be amazed by the beauty and simple elegance of the house each time she entered. It was worlds apart from her home, the fortress-like Chateau. Home. The thought brought scalding tears to her eyes. Was her father still alive? If so, why did he not contact her? Or, better yet, why didn’t he come for her himself?

  In three years she had not received a single letter, if any had been penned, and had dutifully kept her promise not to contact him for fear of discovery. It was proving to be a promise that tormented her and was becoming more difficult to keep with each passing day. Had her beloved father simply forgotten she even existed and moved on to live his life without her?

  “Lynna! For heavens sake, how long does it take you to climb a simple flight of stairs?” Suzanne's irritated voice drifted down the mahogany steps.