Desire in the Sun (45 page)

From behind them a musket spat. The ball whizzed past her ear. Instinctively Lilah ducked. Every thought
but one vanished: Her worst nightmare was about to come true. They would be caught and returned to Heart’s Ease, where Joss would face her father’s vengeance. And Lilah knew all too well that to Leonard Remy, nothing could be more hideous than the fact that she and Joss had been lovers. Her father would see Joss dead.

Another musket barked behind them. The ball whistled past, closer to Joss this time. He ducked, looking back over his shoulder to where the militia were closing fast. His jaw tightened, and his mouth clamped into a hard, straight line.

“Pull up!” he ordered, his face grim.

Lilah turned her head, looking at him in open-mouthed astonishment. She could not have heard him properly. …

“I said pull up!” It was a roar this time, and there was no mistaking the words.

Another musket ball sang through the air, a hair to Joss’s right. Joss leaned dangerously far out of the saddle to grab at Candida’s reins. He caught them, and despite Lilah’s wild cry of protest, pulled both Candida and Tuk to a rearing stop.

“No!” Lilah cried out, fighting him for control of her horse.

“They’re shooting at me, but they’re not particular. They could very well hit you,” he said grimly, releasing her reins as he wheeled Tuk to face the onrushing horsemen. Lilah was free to run, but without him beside her there was no purpose in it. Besides, she realized, as Joss must have, that being taken was inevitable. Their tired horses could not outrun the fresher horses behind them.

Like Joss, she wheeled her horse to face their doom, waiting at his side in proud despair.

In the instant before the horsemen were upon them, Lilah looked at Joss.

“I love you,” she said, knowing that she might never again have a chance to tell him. Tears rose to her eyes,
spilled down her cheeks. He saw the tears, and his eyes darkened. Leaning over in the saddle, he kissed her once, quick and hard. In full view of the onrushing militia.

“I love you, too,” he said. His eyes met hers, and her heart turned over at the expression she saw in them.

Then the militia thundered up, surrounding them. Lilah’s reins were jerked from her hands, while Joss was wrestled from his horse to the ground. Lying on his stomach in the dirt, shackles were fastened around his wrists and he was put in irons.

“Don’t hurt him!” Lilah cried out, unable to stop herself although she knew that to plead for him was a waste of her breath. “He hasn’t done anything!”

“He’s a bloody horse thief, to begin with, and he damned near beat my overseer to death! Before I’m much older I mean to see him hang!” boomed a steely voice. Shocked, Lilah looked around to see her father riding toward her. He’d apparently been at the rear of the group, and she’d missed spotting him in the sea of uniforms. Not accustomed to hard riding, he had nevertheless managed to keep up with men thirty years his junior in pursuit of his errant daughter. That alone told Lilah just how furious he must be. Feeling the door of the cage slam shut against her, she looked hopelessly, helplessly, at Joss. He was being yanked roughly to his feet. Half a dozen members of the militia surrounded him, pistols at the ready. More militiamen, still mounted, held muskets. They were well and truly caught. There was no escape.

Leonard Remy took Candida’s reins from the uniformed man who held them, and greeted his daughter with no more than a single icy glance. Lilah swallowed. She had seen her father in many moods, including thunderous rages, but she had never seen him like this. He looked as though his face had turned to stone, and his heart with it.

“I thank you, Captain Tandy, for your good work. I’ll be taking my daughter home now, and I trust you know what to do with that scoundrel there.”

“He’ll be taken to St. Anne’s Fort, sir, and imprisoned there to await trial for the crime of horse stealing, and any other charges you might care to bring. You can contact Colonel Harrison, head of the garrison, or—”

“I know him,” Leonard interrupted testily. “You’ll be hearing from me, I assure you.”

Without further ado, her father nodded curtly at the officer. He held Lilah’s reins in a grip so tight that his knuckles were white with it. Shock at what was happening dried her eyes. In Barbados, horse thieves were hung. But as terrible as that fate was, it was better than being dragged back to Heart’s Ease as a runaway slave, to be summarily executed by her father. His apparent intent not to take personal vengeance on Joss puzzled her, but she did not dwell on it, not then. There was so little time left, time only to make one last desperate appeal to the father who had never denied her anything in her life.

“Papa, please! Won’t you try to understand? I love him. …”

Before Lilah could guess what he was about, Leonard Remy twisted in the saddle, his meaty hand swinging around to make sharp contact with the side of her face. The blow sounded as loud as a shot, even over the stamping of the horses, rattling of the tack, and the voices of the men. Lilah gasped, her hand flying to her injured cheek, her heart stinging even more than her face. He had never struck her before, ever.

“Shut your mouth, daughter!”

Lilah stared at her father in dumb shock. Some of the militiamen gaped, some pointedly looked away. Joss’s eyes fastened on the pair of them, flamed emerald with rage, but, chained, he was helpless to come to her defense.

Horses and men stood between them, too many to permit the exchange of so much as a final word.

“Do not shame yourself, or me, further. Or I swear I’ll take you home gagged and tied.” Leonard Remy’s voice was a growl almost as cold as his eyes.

“Papa, please. …”It was a piteous plea.

“No more!” he thundered, face reddening with choler, eyes bulging as he glared at her.

Then he yanked at Candida’s reins so that Lilah, unwarned of the mare’s sudden start, was almost unhorsed. She had to grab at the saddle horn for balance. Urging his horse to a brisk canter, he set off for home, dragging his heartsick daughter behind him.

LVIII

T
o Lilah’s complete disbelief, when they arrived home her father ordered her locked in her room. He had hardly spoken to her on the road except to tell her in icy tones that she had disgraced him and herself by her wanton behavior. To her tearful pleas for Joss, he responded with a rage that was frightening.

Lilah gathered that he had told the militia nothing of the fact that Joss was a slave, or anything about Joss’s bloodline. He had simply summoned them on the pretext that his daughter was eloping with an adventurer who had also attacked his overseer and stolen his best horse. Those charges alone were enough to get Joss hanged. But hanging, in Leonard’s loudly expressed view, was too good for the villain who had ruined his daughter. He had done what he could to preserve what was left of Lilah’s name by omitting the fact that her companion in shame was a runaway slave. By doing so he had forfeited his chance to take personal vengeance on one he regarded as kissing kin to the devil incarnate. Although the scandal that was inevitable when news of Lilah’s aborted elopement leaked out would be extensive, they could still hope that, eventually, it would die down. If anyone outside the immediate family ever discovered that the rogue Lilah had run off with was a man
of color and a runaway slave, the resulting infamy was something none of them would ever live down.

The evening after her return home in disgrace, Lilah was summoned to the library. Lilah had never been “summoned” anywhere before, and she followed Jane, who had been sent to unlock her door and fetch her, downstairs with more than a little trepidation. But she kept her chin up and was outwardly composed, allowing none of the humiliation or fear she felt to show. She meant to fight for Joss, and herself.

The library was paneled in teak and lined with shelves of leather-bound books. Though it was dark outside, the oil lanterns cast a golden glow over everything. The room was furnished with an Aubusson carpet in soft rose, a massive mahogany desk and a leather chair, and several other armchairs with small tables beside them. It was Leonard’s sanctum, and Lilah had spent many a pleasant evening in there when she was younger, playing chess with her father.

The wooden jalousies that covered the windows in lieu of curtains were cranked outward, allowing a soft breeze to cool the room. Despite the breeze the room was warm, but Lilah felt cold as she looked over at her father, who was seated behind the desk. His expression as he looked up at her upon her entrance was one of distaste. Lilah immediately felt soiled, unclean, and was furious with herself for feeling so. She refused to be ashamed of her love.

Jane followed Lilah into the room. Leonard immediately motioned to Zack, one of the houseboys who’d been stationed by the door, that he could go.

Kevin was also present, seated in a chair near the desk. A white bandage was wrapped around his head where Joss had hit him with the pistol. One side of his mouth was swollen and discolored, and he sported a painful-looking black eye.

Thrown into prison, treated as scum, Joss’s wounds
wouldn’t have received the care that Kevin’s had. Lilah’s heart ached at the thought. Immediately she banished it from her mind. If she was to have any hope of persuading her father of the merits of her plan, she had to keep a cool head, and not let her emotions interfere.

“Hello, Kevin,” she said evenly, crossing the room toward her father. Kevin’s eyes flickered, but he didn’t reply.

Neither of the men rose as was their wont as she entered, nor said a word of greeting, nor was she asked to have a seat. She stopped before the desk, waited, head high though her knees had begun to tremble at the icy quality of the silence. Both men continued to stare at her as if they’d never seen her before, as if she had suddenly grown two heads.

The silence stretched out, grew fraught with tension. At last Jane broke it, saying in a timid voice: “Leonard, don’t you think Lilah might be allowed to sit?”

Her husband flashed her a narrow-eyed look, and then his eyes immediately returned to his daughter.

“Sit, then,” he barked. Lilah looked at him, searching for a hint that he was not as closed to her as he seemed. The grim, blunt-featured face seemed to belong to a stranger rather than the father who’d always adored her. Feeling a dull pain take root in the area near her heart, Lilah sat in a small upright chair. Three pairs of eyes fixed her, pilloried her. She felt like a prisoner in the dock. Her heart knocked against her ribcage as she looked from one familiar face to another, and found a softening for her only on Jane’s. She had known her father would be furious if he had ever discovered her love for Joss, but never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that his rage would be so all-consuming. It was almost as if he hated her.

Leonard drummed his fingers on the desk top, looked over at Kevin then back at Lilah, his face hardening until it could have been carved from granite. His eyes were
distant, cold. Lilah had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep tears from filling her eyes. She knew that by acting on her feelings for Joss she had cut herself off from her father’s love forever.

At last Leonard spoke. “I need not go over how sickened I am by the abomination you have committed, or how shocked and grieved I am that you, my daughter, would debauch herself with a slave. No words I can say can convey the depths of my revulsion for what you have done. You’re not the daughter I thought I knew.”

“Papa. …” A lump lodged in her throat, turning the word into a croak. Her eyes beseeched him. He silenced her with a gesture, appearing not the least bit moved by her obvious distress.

“At the present I am solely concerned with salvaging what we can from this debacle. Word of your transgression is doubtless already spreading across the island like wildfire; you may rest assured that you will no longer be received by any but our closest friends. And they will only allow you in their homes for my sake, and only because they don’t know the true extent of your depravity. Of course they will think that your ruin was with a white man. No one could ever imagine the true depths to which you have sunk.”

Lilah did not try to interrupt this time. Tears were too perilously close to the surface to permit her to speak.

“Tempted as I may be, your stepmother has persuaded me not to totally cast you off. If you are ever to have the slightest chance of taking your place in society again, you must wed at once. Kevin here says he is still willing to have you. I salute the nobility of spirit and kindness for me which prompt him to such a sacrifice. Though it ill becomes one who loves him like a son to do so, I have taken him up on his offer because there is no other way for you, my blood daughter as much as it shames me to claim you, to avoid absolute ruin. You should feel grateful that Kevin is willing to offer you the
protection of his name. I, in his place, would not be so generous.

“Father Sykes will be coming at noon tomorrow to perform the ceremony. Under the circumstances, it will be done as discreetly as possible, with only family in attendance. Kevin tells me he is prepared to treat you with kindness despite what you have done. I hope you are properly grateful to him.”