Virginia Henley (16 page)

She summoned an elderly black man. “Titus, show Monsieur O’Reilly to the front guest room and tend to his needs.”

Titus ran a bath for Patrick and laid out fresh underwear and a white frilled shirt on the bed. While Patrick bathed, his suit was taken away to be brushed and pressed. Patrick had always been used to having money, but he had never seen it
so lavishly spent. He estimated that house, kitchens and garden must employ over fifty servants. The rooms were filled with the most exquisite and expensive furniture Europe had to offer. The chandeliers were breathtaking, the drinking glasses were the finest lead crystal. He had no doubt now what would bring top prices when he shipped his next cargo.

Dinner that evening was probably the most delicious Patrick had ever eaten. It was French cuisine at its finest. A delicate bisque, crab quiche, shrimp coquilles, coq au vin surrounded by delicately flavored mounds of plantation-grown rice. Everything was served on the most ornate Georgian silver dishes and Sevres china. The two of them were served by six slaves, albeit unobtrusively.

Patrick came straight to the point, buying and paying for Bagatelle’s whole cotton crop. Only half was picked and baled, but he made arrangements for the rest to be shipped as soon as it was ready. She chided him for his impatience. “A southern gentleman wouldn’t have brought up the subject of business until he’d enjoyed our hospitality for a few days. Tell me, Patrick, are you always in a hurry?”

“When I know what I want, I walk a direct path toward it, and I’m not always a gentleman,” he warned her.

“That’s good, for I’m not always a lady,” she parried.

“The plantation intrigues me. Would you mind if I took a walk this evening?”

Outside in the darkness the air was hot and damp, but it had a softness to it that he had never felt before. Insects, frogs and crickets made up a midnight band, and singing could be heard in the direction of the slave quarters. The air was heavy with the fragrance of night-blooming flowers and the moss-hung trees made romantic, ethereal shadows. The atmosphere made him think of love, and Patrick was haunted by fleeting glimpses of Kitty. An overwhelming longing came over him that made a tightness in his chest and elsewhere.
He mentally shook himself for a damned fool. Jacquine was within arm’s reach. No child this, but a mature woman whose passion would match his own. He went back to the house and climbed the stairs to his room. He decided he wouldn’t go to her, but make her come to him. If she wanted it as much as he thought she did, she would come!

He removed his coat, unbuttoned his shirt and slipped off his shoes and stockings when there was a soft tap on the door.

“Come in,
chérie
,” he called.

To his amazement a small black girl took a few steps into the room and reluctantly closed the door.

“What would you like?” he asked, puzzled.

“I have to do my duties, sir,” she said shyly.

“What are your duties, child?” he inquired.

“Whatever you desire, sir.”

He looked at her and suddenly he knew why she was there. Another southern tradition for him to sample. “What is your name?” “Topaz, sir.”

“Come, Topaz.” He beckoned her to the light. She was not a pretty girl, but she was very young and quite obviously inexperienced from the frightened looks she cast upon him.

“Did your mistress send you to me?” he asked curiously.

She hung her head. “Yes, sir. She picked me for your bed wench. Please, sir, don’t whip me?” she pleaded.

He put his finger under her chin and raised her face until their eyes met.

Fear, like he had seen in Kitty’s eyes, mingled with mute pleading. He smiled kindly at her. “I won’t whip you, Topaz. I won’t hurt you in any way. You are very sweet and very lovely, but there is nothing I desire from you, sweetheart. You may leave now. Go to bed. Don’t worry about your mistress. I will explain to her.”

Relief flooded her features. In that moment of kindness she felt real love for him and she fell to her knees and kissed his hands. He gently disengaged himself and raised her hand to his lips before he held the door open for her to leave.

Patrick wondered if this was some kind of test Jacquine had devised for him. He did not know if he had passed or failed, and he didn’t really give a damn. He went out onto the gallery to smoke a cigar. He had not been there long when he sensed rather than saw Jacquine. He stood perfectly still and let her approach. She was wearing a filmy black negligee that showed her white skin through even in the dark. He waited until she spoke first. “You did not care for the companion I chose for you, Patrick?” He crushed out his cigar and pulled her to him roughly.

“I choose my own bedmates, Jacquine! Stop fencing with me. There’s no need to play cat-and-mouse games.”

“I enjoy crossing swords with you, Patrick. You have such a formidable weapon.” He picked her up and carried her to his room. He lifted her as easily as if she had been the lightest weight imaginable and laid her full length on the bed. He removed his shirt and pants and stood before her for inspection.

“Tell me what you like; name your poison.” He grinned down at her.

“You mean like a menu, Patrick? Whatever I fancy, served any way I like?”

“Exactly! I will satisfy your hunger for you.”

“Well, first of all I like it on the floor,
chéri.
Then I want to be assaulted and battered as hard and as long as you can stand it.”

His love play consisted of biting her nipples and almost bruising her body with his hard hands. She groaned and writhed in pleasure and demanded he penetrate her immediately. He gripped her body with hurting hands and bruised
her mouth with his, bringing blood. He mounted her with a brutal lunge and thrust himself to the hilt. He was just as rough, savage and brutal as she wanted him to be and she reached peaks of ecstasy with the pleasure-pain. He kept at her until she couldn’t take any more for the moment and begged him to stop. He ignored her and thrust harder until she crossed her strong, well-muscled legs around his body and squeezed until she almost cracked his ribs. He withdrew, but strangely he had found no release with this insatiable animal. They rested for a few minutes, panting against each other. Their sweat plastered their bodies together, and when she reached for him, thinking she would have to cajole him to arousal for a second bout, his burning, hard erection jumped and quivered to her touch.

And so it was all night as he gave her whatever she desired.

As he bathed and dressed the next morning, Patrick wondered what made her so insatiable. Was it because she had been starved for so long without being satisfied, or was she always like that? He suspected the latter was true and idly wondered how she would manage until her year of mourning was up and she was free to marry again.

As Patrick and Jacquine rode together, he realized the vast scale of this plantation and became quite covetous. Five thousand acres were planted in cotton, and even though the yield was only one bale per acre, it was almost 100 percent profit because each crop provided seed for the next and the labor was virtually free. The plantation was totally self-sustaining. Vegetable crops covered many acres and these fed the slaves as well as the big house. All the swampland was cultivated in rice. The land had an intricate drainage system which took off water, stored it and returned it to the rows of green shoots as required. He immediately thought of Ireland and knew
that with such a system successful crops could be produced from the black, sodden soil.

He thought, in fact, if only I could transplant this whole place to Ireland—without the black slaves of course—it would be paradise on earth.

At the farthest point from the house they kept livestock, hogs, chickens and turkeys, which provided the meat for the plantation.

He watched Jacquine from the corner of his eye. She guided her horse with an iron hand and clearly enjoyed the feeling of power the large animal gave her. He knew in that moment that all this could be his. If he asked her to marry him, he would be master of all he surveyed.

Whenever he saw Topaz, she gave him a shy smile and hurried away before the mistress could catch her. Patrick stayed a week and at the end of this time he was thoroughly sated with Jacquine and his nightly jousts. Her animal magnetism had ensnared him in the beginning, but the excesses began to jade his palate and the fascination was beginning to wear thin. At breakfast one morning he told her flatly that although he had enjoyed her hospitality, he had business awaiting him in New York that he dared delay no longer.

“Well, Patrick, you know when my period of mourning is up. Will you return by then?” she asked boldly.

“I promise you, Jacquine, that I shall return by then. I shall want your next year’s crop, and perhaps other things, by then.”

They understood each other completely. He knew what she was offering, and she was being generous enough to give him ample time to consider whether he would accept or reject it. In truth, at that moment, Patrick did not know what his decision would be.

He drove back to Charleston, and the ship sailed up the coast and into New York Harbor. He had come to see if it
was feasible to start up branches of successful English companies. James Leaver wanted to start manufacturing his soap in America, and Patrick was on the board of directors of two other companies that had their eyes on America. New York was a thriving city. A new word had just been coined— “millionaire” —and Patrick thought it would be no bad thing to be. Fortunes were to be made in banking and railroads and gold mines. It was indeed a land of opportunities and he was determined to seize them all.

Patrick was away eight months before he returned to England, and before he left Liverpool he sunk more money into another merchant vessel that he would fill with exports and sell at handsome profits. By the time he arrived in London, Julia had produced her first child and was determined not to have any more for a while. Barbara was beside herself with joy at the sight of her brother and longed to go home to Bolton with him. The cotton from Bagatelle would have arrived by now anyway, and he was anxious to see the quality of the goods it would produce.

His lawyer told him of two new low offers on the Falcon and advised Patrick not to sell. Determined to find out what was wrong at the Falcon he decided to have a talk with his manager and go over the books. When Patrick got there he called a meeting of the manager, the foreman and the overseers and asked for their reports. Production was down, there was discord between the workers and the bosses and Patrick wanted answers. At first they seemed to walk on eggs with him; finally someone with guts spoke up.

“Well, I’ll call a spade a spade, if none of the rest of you will! We’ve had some accidents recently and the place has a bad reputation. It’s been nicknamed ‘Cripples Factory,’ if you want to know the truth.”

Patrick listened intently. “You mean the machines are old and unsafe?” They all nodded grimly. Patrick knew he was guilty of the things he had accused his father of. He had put back no money into improvements since he had taken over
almost two years ago. Commerce without morality was a deadly sin and it would have to be corrected without delay.

Kitty had had no breakfast that morning. She set her machines in motion automatically. She was lightheaded, but it was a feeling that always seemed to be with her. Her face had taken on a resigned look and she feared that the mill would prove to be a lifetime sentence with no escape. It all happened in an instant. She squeezed past a machine facing it, rather than putting her back toward it. The great leather belt caught hold of her overall and flung her up into the air, with the material catching on the great cog wheel. She screamed wildly. The fact that the cotton dress had been washed so many times saved her life. The thin, almost rotten overall ripped clean down the front and her limp, unconscious body fell to the oily floor. The accident siren sounded and the hair on the nape of Patrick’s neck stood on end. He ran from the office toward the spinning room where the commotion was coming from. He elbowed his way through the crowd of girls and looked down at the crumpled figure that seemed too small to be a human being. It was a minute before recognition hit him.

“Kitty, my God!”

The impact was like a blow to his solar plexus. The room was so hot and humid he could hardly breathe and sweat broke out on his face. He looked down at the striped cotton dress and suddenly to his horror he was back on the plantation and Kitty was just as much a cotton slave as those black people had been. He picked her up tenderly and carried her to the office.

“I’ll run for the doctor, Mr. O’Reilly. Lay her down here,” the foreman said.

“No, no. I’d rather you drove me home. I don’t want a doctor from around here.” He was alarmed at her waxen
pallor. He quickly lifted her into the carriage and gently laid her against the squabs, keeping hold of her hands and chafing them clumsily. Kitty regained consciousness twice in the carriage, but her eyes only flickered open momentarily without focusing, then closed again as she lapsed back into unconsciousness. He flung open the front door and called, “Barbara, Mrs. Thomson, come quickly.”