Savage Deception (Liberty's Ladies) Read online

  “I see that you don’t,” Harlan admitted with a hint of a smile. “You never did.”

  “And that amuses you?”

  “I don’t find it amusing, but I do respect you. You’re able to stand on your own two feet and take life’s punches, whereas Kingsley is weak like me. He would never have survived what you have.”

  “I doubt I’ll survive it now.” Tanner rose on unsteady feet, grimacing with the hot pain that flowed across his back. “I’m leaving Briarhaven today. Please look after my mother for me.”

  For a second Harlan appeared disappointed, then he said, “I promise you that Naomi will be well cared for. Where are you going, Tanner?”

  “Away. I don’t know where and I don’t care.”

  “Under the circumstances, this is the best thing for everybody. Do you need any money?”

  “Nothing from you, sir.”

  Standing up, Harlan peered sadly at his older son. “You’ve never called me Father, always sir or Master Harlan, but never Father. I should like to hear you say it just once, Tanner.”

  Tanner swung around to face him, oblivious of the wracking pain caused by such a violent movement. “And I wanted you to call me Son, but you never did. Not even when I was a child and sick with fever, almost dying, did you call me anything but Tanner or boy. I’ve been nothing to you but a piece of handiwork, spawned on a cold winter’s night on an ignorant Indian girl who was so besotted with you and your great wealth that she abandoned her people for you. I’m a disgrace to you, but you’re such an ‘honorable’ bastard that you can’t admit it. Tell me I’m wrong. Prove to me I’m wrong. Call me Son so I can call you Father.”

  Harlan’s mouth dried up. He opened it to speak, but long years of denying Tanner’s claim to the Sheridan name had forced him to behave in a certain fashion. For twenty-six years he’d pictured himself as the benevolent but distant father figure who was assured of his bastard son’s affections. Now he realized that Tanner’s respectfulness toward him didn’t come from love but from a wound more angry and deep than the ones Kingsley had inflicted. Worst of all, he’d allowed Kingsley to hurt him. Harlan felt that he should be able to say to Tanner, “Yes, you are my son,” but he couldn’t do it. Not now, not after all of these years, not after what he had let Kingsley do to Tanner. He felt Tanner would be unable to forgive him, and he couldn’t bear the brunt of Tanner’s hate. What if he acknowledged him as his son and Tanner wouldn’t call him Father?

  Clearing his throat, Harlan moved to the doorway. “I have to dress for the wedding. My thoughts and good will go with you.”

  Then he was gone, and Tanner was left standing in the middle of the tiny room until his mother reappeared. “Did you say your farewells to your father, Mariah?”

  “I said farewell to Master Harlan, Mother,” he snapped, his face ashen.

  “You’re unwell, Tanner,” Naomi gently chided and placed a thin hand on his arm. “Rest. You can’t leave today.”

  Tanner felt awful, worse than he’d ever felt in his entire life, but he was going away today and no one was going to stop him. Looking at his frail mother, he saw she resembled a tiny doll with large, black eyes. Delicate high cheekbones stood out starkly on a face that was much too thin and lined with years of worry. He gently touched the raven black braid, neatly plaited, that lay across her shoulder, then hugged her. “I must go. You see how things are.”

  “Yes,” Naomi admitted. “You must leave and put this woman out of your mind.”

  “I can’t forget her, Mother. She is somehow a part of me, like the earth that craves the warmth of the sun by day and the coolness of the moon at night. But she lied about me to Kingsley — and Harlan. I will make her pay for that lie.”

  “Don’t let vengeance eat away at you, Mariah. Go into the world and make your way, make a new life and forget Briarhaven and this woman.”

  Tanner grinned despite the pain of his back and the sharper one in his soul. “I won’t forget, Mother. One day I will return like a windstorm, and I will sweep up everything within my path … Briarhaven and Diana. Especially Diana.”

  ~

  Tanner took a fine black stallion from his father’s stables. After all, the old man did owe him something. He’d already told his mother goodbye and was a bit surprised to discover that his back didn’t hurt so much. Perhaps leaving Briarhaven relieved some of the pain.

  He’d tied a small sack onto the saddle, a sack filled with a heavy overcoat and his only other change of clothes. Now he wore a thin shirt and brown breeches and boots, his stomach recently filled with Naomi’s freshly baked biscuits and sweet potatoes. He was more than ready to leave.

  As he sauntered along the dirt road that led from his cabin to Briarhaven, he spotted Jarla, a slave girl who was four months along with child. He reined in when he saw her, seeing a haunting pain in the girl’s eyes. She was barely fourteen and already knew more about life than he cared to imagine.

  “You really is leavin’, suh?” she asked him. At his nod, she sighed. “I wish you weren’t goin’. Now Master Kingsley gonna be real hard on us.”

  “I’m sorry, but I must go.”

  “You leavin’ ‘cause of Master Kingsley’s woman?”

  “No.”

  Jarla grinned and dug her bare toes into the soft earth beneath her feet. “Yeah, you is, but I’m glad Master Kingsley’s gettin’ married to her. Now I don’t have to worry any ‘bout him botherin’ me agin.” She placed her hands on her swollen abdomen. “Now he can have his way with her and git her a baby.” Waving to Tanner, Jarla streaked away like a black comet.

  Tanner felt suddenly ill to realize anew that Diana was going to marry Kingsley that afternoon. Had the wedding taken place yet? He didn’t want to think about the conniving vixen or about the lie she’d told, having already decided that Diana was like most “gently bred” ladies. They wanted to frolic in the hay with someone beneath them, but then cried rape when they were caught. However, as much as he thought he hated her, he couldn’t help veering off of the road when he came in sight of the house. He found a place, thick with verdant foliage, and spied upon the wedding ceremony.

  All of the guests were assembled on the lawn. He saw his father and the Richmonds smiling as the reverend stood beneath the rose-covered trellis and married Kingsley to Diana. Tanner’s heart stuck in his throat. He had not expected to find Diana so beautiful. In a gown of white satin with embroidered pink rosebuds, Diana took away his breath. Her lovely face was turned toward him, but she didn’t see him as she gazed up at Kingsley and recited her vows. In the afternoon stillness, Tanner clearly heard her words. “To love and to cherish till death do we part…”

  It was too much for him. Spurring the black stallion into a vicious gait, he rushed away from the touching scene and found himself on the road that ran either to Charlestown or up the coast. The choice was his.

  He wanted to flee like the wind, but he had already decided that one day he’d return, and when he did, Briarhaven would be his. And Diana would belong to him. Tanner turned eastward, living only for the hour he could claim the deceitful Diana as his own.

  3

  She was married now and frightened of what was to come.

  Hattie had long since left her alone in the bedroom after helping her change from her wedding gown into a white lace nightrail. “Don’t you fret, child,” Hattie had told her reassuringly as she brushed Diana’s long dark hair. “You ain’t got no cause to be scared. Master Kingsley loves you. He’ll be gentle with you or old Hattie will take a hairbrush to his rear like I done when he was a little boy.”

  Diana was so frightened that not even that image could elicit a smile from her. What made her more fearful was the absence of Anne and David, who had left for Charlestown shortly after the ceremony. In fact, the house was empty now except for Hattie, Harlan having accompanied the Richmonds to give the newlyweds some time alone.

  Night had fallen, and a single candle provided the only light in the room except for a sudden str
eak of lightning. Thunder rumbled from the direction of the Atlantic, and Diana knew it wouldn’t be long before the Santee area was deluged with a summer storm. She shivered at the eeriness of it all, her fear made worse by the weather.

  What was Kingsley going to do to her that she needed to be scented with rosewater and dressed in a sheer nightgown to please him? What if she didn’t please him? Her large blue eyes caught the candle’s glow and widened with the terror of her own thoughts. Grasping the elaborately carved post of the bed like a frightened child who dreads the monsters of the dark, she trained her gaze on the door.

  “But he’s my husband, not some bogey man,” she reminded herself. “I must do my duty by him and make Anne and David proud of me.” Yet her palms perspired and she jumped every time lightning flashed in the heavens or thunder rolled. She wanted Kingsley to hurry up and come to her, yet she wanted him never to come. In her mind she heard Anne’s parting words to her. “Do your duty by your husband, Diana. Let him have his way with you without complaint, and you shall find great happiness and pleasure.”

  She’d follow Anne’s advice, that’s what she’d do, and somehow she’d manage to push down the butterflies in her stomach. Suddenly she remembered what Anne had told her about that fluttering feeling when you loved someone. Maybe she did love Kingsley, Diana thought. She felt that sensation, but she didn’t find it pleasant.

  Unbidden came the memory of Tanner’s touch, something she had found to be more than pleasant. If that happened with Kingsley when he claimed her as his wife then she would like it very much. However, thinking about Tanner upset her. He hadn’t tried to see her or send a message to her. She learned from Hattie that he had left Briarhaven. Evidently he had very little feeling for her to leave like that. How very wrong she’d been to believe that he loved her! Perhaps she was wrong then to be afraid of what Kingsley would do to her. After all, she’d been such a poor judge of Tanner’s intentions.

  A creaking noise outside the door alerted her to Kingsley’s approach. The breath seemed to wane in her lungs when she saw Kingsley silhouetted in the doorway. He wore a long green robe, open at the neckline to reveal a hairy, well-formed chest. She couldn’t help but compare him mentally to Tanner, whose chest she remembered as being smooth and strong. Kingsley smiled at her, apparently pleased at the image she presented in the white gown with her dark hair spilling around her shoulders. Closing the door, he locked it from the inside and placed the key in the robe’s pocket.

  Diana’s heart knocked against her ribcage. “Why did you lock the door, Kingsley?”

  “To keep everyone out, especially Hattie. If you require anything, I’ll call for her, but I don’t want the old biddie interrupting us. I want you all to myself, Diana.”

  Of course, they were newly married and being locked away wasn’t unusual, but Diana grew uneasy with no way out.

  “Hattie brought us some wine,” she said, pointing to a crystal decanter and glasses on the small Chippendale table beside the bed. “Shall I pour some for you?”

  “No, I had some downstairs.”

  A nervous smile appeared on her face. “What can I do for you, Kingsley?” she asked in all innocence.

  Kingsley came closer to her and pulled the gown from her shoulders to bare her breasts to him. “A great deal, my love, a great deal.”

  ~

  It was over. Diana lay on her back, no longer afraid of the vicious thunderstorm that raged through the night. A numbness of soul consumed her; she felt dead inside.

  Kingsley had had his way with her. The spot between her legs burned like fire and blood stained the inside of her thighs. She doubted she’d ever be able to get out of bed again or to walk normally.

  The last two hours were a horrible nightmare from which she couldn’t awaken. But Kingsley slept undisturbed beside her, his nude body atop the sheets. Even in sleep his hand was curled in the depths of her hair, preventing her from leaving him. She wanted to die in an attempt to erase the humiliation she’d suffered this night, to forget the crude words he’d whispered into her ear, to never feel the pain of his penetration again.

  He’d been cruel from the very start, ripping her gown from her and pushing her onto the bed. She remembered staring in wide-eyed fright as he removed his robe. She had never seen an aroused man before and was totally innocent of how a man was even made. “I’m going to have my way now, Diana. Finally you’re going to be mine. I had wanted to be tender with you, but you need to be punished for enjoying Tanner’s hands upon you.” He’d forced her to look at him, and she’d never forget how he’d scowled at her, almost as if she were vermin. “And you did enjoy his touch, didn’t you? Well, didn’t you?” He shouted at her over and over until she screamed that she had.

  “If only you’d waited for me, my love. For all I know I may have married used goods.”

  “I’m not used,” she proclaimed.

  He laughed. “I hope not, but after tonight you will belong only to me. Yet I’ll never forget how I came upon you and Tanner. For as long as I live I shall see you writhing on the ground beneath my brother and hear your moans while he suckled your beautiful breasts. Why did you allow such a bastard to feast upon your body while you let me kiss you only once? You’re going to pay for all those months you kept me waiting, sniffing around you like a cur after a bitch’s scent. You’re my wife now and you’ll do as I order, do exactly as I want without complaint. No one will help you if you go whining to them, not your sister or David, not my father. I’m your master now.”

  With that he parted her legs. She had no idea of what he intended to do. Anne had told her to do her duty, that Kingsley would guide her, but this was so foreign and appalling. What was more unexpected was when Kingsley rose up on his knees and grabbed that huge, awesome thing in his hand. She was unsure what he intended to do with it until she felt its hardness nudging at her. “No, Kingsley, you can’t,” she gasped when understanding dawned. But he did.

  She screamed and tried to push him away, to somehow escape, but Kingsley held her pinned to the bed. He plunged into her with such force that she arched her back and clawed at him, frantic to be free and escape this torturous pain. Instead of releasing her, he plundered her more deeply, not heeding her cries. Luckily for Diana, Kingsley hadn’t been with a woman for weeks. Though it seemed like hours had passed, it was only moments before he shuddered and filled her with a sticky warmth.

  “You’re mine,” he crowed in triumph. “Mine. All mine.” To prove that point, he took her once more before wrapping his arms possessively about her and falling asleep with his mouth at her breast.

  Tears streamed down her cheeks. Anne had lied to her. There was no pleasure in letting Kingsley have his way with her. How did women bear this beastly horror over and over for years? She cried for her poor dear mother, who must have endured this same pain and humiliation at the hands of her husband. How could Diana’s father, whom Diana remembered as compassionate and kind, have done this to her mother if he loved her? Were all men brutes? Was David? Anne loved David, and he loved her, but Diana had no idea how her sister could tolerate or stand the pain. She always looked so well and happy, but Anne wanted children and so had her mother. Evidently women put up with quite a bit to conceive.

  Kingsley had mentioned that he wanted an heir for Briarhaven. Maybe if she became pregnant right away, he’d leave her alone. She prayed it would be so, because she didn’t believe she’d ever love Kingsley enough not to care what he did to her body.

  Diana wiped away unexpected tears. A sob welled within her throat as she realized that Tanner wanted to have his way with her, too. Like a silly, stupid fool she had believed he loved her. He’d lulled her with something so blindingly wonderful that she’d have given her body to him freely. And then, after the glorious feel of his touch upon her, he’d have done the same hurtful and humiliating act to her in order to gain his vengeance upon Kingsley. She knew then that Tanner had lied to her when he told her he loved her, otherwise he would never have w
anted to hurt her in such a way.

  Glancing at Kingsley, she felt utter remorse for having married him. She’d have been better off to have married a stranger than a man whom she thought she might come to love. The outcome would have been the same. She knew now that she hated Kingsley and always would, but she was his wife and must do her duty by him, despicable though it was.

  But she hated Tanner more for not coming for her and stopping the marriage, knowing she’d have run away with him if he’d asked her. But, again, nothing would have been different. Tanner would have taken his pleasure with her just as Kingsley had done. He’d have hurt and humiliated her after firing her flesh with his hands and his lips, something which Kingsley hadn’t done but which she viewed as somehow even more deceitful and treacherous. She would have expected something glorious, only to be left with bitter pain and heartache.

  For this betrayal she could never forgive him. At that moment she hated Tanner more than Kingsley.

  Wiping away the last of her tears, she clung to the hatred in her soul as a means of escaping the ugliness of the marriage she’d made. She would hate Tanner forever and never cry again.

  4

  December, 1780

  Hattie finished kneading the dough on the planked table and put the loaf into the oven. “Gonna be a sorry Christmas ‘round here,” she muttered to Diana as Diana walked out of the pantry. “Those redcoats eatin’ up most all the food we got and sleepin’ in our beds. When you suppose this war gonna be over?”

  Diana placed two jars of jelly preserves on the table. “I hope soon, Hattie, but I trust you haven’t said anything out of the way to Captain Farnsworth or insinuated how you feel. We’re very lucky that the British chose Briarhaven as their headquarters. You know what damage has been done to the other houses along the Santee, what with the burnings by some patriots against Tories and the British burning out the patriots. As long as Farnsworth is here, we’re safe.”