“It’s not everyone who has the luxury of freedom.” His eyes flashed.
“I’d hoped there would be some civility between us, but that is for naught.” She prodded her horse forward, but Blackmon again seized the reins.
“I’m not done with you yet.”
“Let go.” She raised her whip, but found herself yanked off her horse. She slid down against the total hard maleness of him. His hands came up, skimming the sides of her waist and breasts. She felt nothing but shock in those first moments, then fear. She pushed away from him. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“So why have you been avoiding me?” He laughed. “And why did you buy me?”
“I am not avoiding you.” She wanted to slap that smug smile off his face. Her emotions swirled like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. Suddenly, he seemed less formidable. “You did not seem like the others,” was all she would admit for now.
“I am not,” he said.
“Your conceit is noted.”
“There is a striking difference. The others stand worthy rebels where I am innocent. History would find me content plying my trade as a country physician. My betters desired to rid the pestilence of the English empire. The rebels’ goal to drive out the tyrannical King James and his ill-bred following with cost to their own blood. My regret is that I did not.”
“Your words are treasonous to the King.”
“More-so since our brief meeting in the gaol. I stand here before you, royal generosity in human flesh. Hangings for his Majesty proved to be a heedless waste of human chattel. Why not fill the King’s coffers? Fifteen hundred prisoners distributed to the colonies for ten years. Dead or broken in their wake, makes no difference when there is profit to be made.”
“You could be flogged for your treasonous talk.”
“I think not.”
Was he mocking her? She searched his countenance. “You are very sure of yourself.”
“As I am of the governor’s feet. It is Lily I have to thank for that. Add the governor’s wife’s vapors, and by word of mouth, the rest of the island followed suit. My condition compared to my comrades, relatively easy. However it was you who bought me off the docks. I resented you buying me, but I’ve forgiven you.”
Claire suppressed a smile from his lofty absolution. “Why do I suspect that your tone is not complimentary?”
“Because I’ll carry your uncle’s marks to my grave.”
“If you knew the truth−” she faltered. If only she could tell him how her uncle had beaten her when she had foiled his plans to marry her off to that hideous old man. She was no different than a slave.
“I see the truth every day. Men in agonizing misery, toiling the sugar plantations sunrise to sunset, and if they dare to rest are scourged by the whips of the overseer and his men to speed them along. Ill-nourished, half-naked in rags, your uncle sees fit to brutalize them more despite their sickness and deprivations. God forbid they are misguided and run off. If they are fortunate they’ll die from their flogging, at least finding peace.”
She began to walk, and he alongside her. The complexities of their thoughts and lives disregarded for the moment as they lapsed into companionable silence. The sun climbed its zenith and they withdrew onto the shade of a narrow rainforest path, walking shoulder to shoulder.
Claire breathed in the heady scents of ferns, jasmine and−the scent of him, felt the heat from his body next to hers. Every breath wove into her brain and spiraled there. Despite the noise from parrots fluttering above, she could hear his heartbeats, feel his pulse pounding along her nerves. She glanced at him. There was something powerful about the aura of forbidden maleness of this man. It was almost as if the perfection of his face and form was at constant war with the scarred bitterness of his soul. A flash of pity softened her discomfort. The warm afternoon stroll lulled her. The moment felt so perfect...so perfectly right. It was possible to imagine...
No. She did not delude herself any further. A relationship with him was impossible.
“What if I paid for your freedom?” She would find the money somehow. “You could escape.” And she would escape…him. She glanced at him from beneath her lashes. Did he guess the vein of her thoughts?
“I am not so honorable,” he laughed.
A stream of fury boiled up inside of her. She spun around and stalked away. She’d taken but a few steps when a hard hand fell on her shoulder, stopping her dead. Those green eyes lay upon hers with the same power as that of his hand upon her shoulder.
“That was not wifely of you.”
“I am your wife in name only. You have taxed my generosity long enough. I am anxious to be rid of your company.” Claire pried his hand from her.
“Are you a wicked enchantress, weaving her spell around me, dooming me to the depths of the underworld? When all I desire is to have your heart beat close to mine, knowing that all of what I want the most is so near yet held so far away.”
He moved her straight back...until she was flush against a tree, the whole of his long, lean body pressed tight against her. Claire wanted to glance away, but couldn’t. The man was like an elemental force, like the changing seas, a force so fierce that nothing in his vicinity could turn away or remain unchanged−least of all her.
“Claire−”
