Sensing how deeply the injustice troubled him, Noelle reached out and gently touched his arm. "I'm sorry, Quinn."
For a moment he looked at her, and then he nodded curtly and walked away.
That night, Quinn did not cross the cabin to her berth; nor the next. Long after he had fallen asleep, Noelle lay awake trying to understand why it was becoming harder and harder for her to keep her hatred for Quinn burning as fiercely as before. Could it be because she was strangely fascinated by him? Of all the men she had ever met, he was the only one who had never bored her.
She remembered the night she had returned from Yorkshire and confronted Simon. "I'm frightened of him," she had declared. "Can't you understand that?"
But had she been completely honest? It was true that Quinn moved through life with only the thinnest restraint on the violent side of his nature. It was also true that, too often, she had been the target of that violence. But she had lived on the cutting edge of danger since she was seven years old. While his treatment of her was abominable, in some perverse way it was not as dehumanizing as being fawned over by men who knew nothing more about her than that she was beautiful.
Without quite knowing it she made her decision. For now, it would be Cape Crosse, Copeland and Peale, and Quinn. She needed time to adjust to this new country. But most of all, she needed time to settle her relationship with her husband. As long as she felt any ambivalence toward him, she would never be free of him, no matter how much geographical distance might separate them. As for the future, she had a good mind and a strong body. She would make her own way whenever she chose.
PART FOUR
The Copeland Bride
Chapter Thirty
Savannah, one of the busiest ports in the South, lived up to its reputation the mild morning in late January when Quinn and Noelle debarked from the Dorsey Beale. Merchant ships anchored beside brigs and paddle steamers. Sloops darted in and out of the bustling harbor while barges and flat-bottomed boats made their way to and from the mouth of the Savannah River on their journeys for the wealth of cotton and tobacco. Wagons pulled by workhorses and teams of oxen lined the piers as burly roustabouts unloaded cargo from deep within the holds of the ships. Carriages and wagons for hire dotted the waterfront streets, their drivers mulling about in small groups, waiting for the hefty fares they anticipated from the wealthy first-class passengers leaving the ship.
After he had supervised the safe debarkation of Pathkiller and Chestnut Lady, Quinn hired one such carriage. Normally, he explained, they would travel between Savannah and Cape Crosse by boat, but today there was a sou'wester blowing, and it would be just as fast overland.
The trip took them over rough roads and crude wooden bridges that looked as if the slightest breeze would sweep them away. They ate a silent dinner at an inn along the road and arrived at Televea at dusk. The carriage traveled down a narrow brick-paved lane thickly edged with pines. The lane stretched for some distance before it opened into a clearing with what had once been a magnificent white frame house sitting high on a rise.
It had been built in the federal style with the center well- balanced by a tall hipped roof and, flush at each end of this main section, narrow one-story wings. Graceful windows set in recessed arches were framed by shutters that had once been black and shiny but were now faded and, in several cases, hanging loose from single rusted hinges. Overgrown boxwood and azaleas encircled a long porch supported by four simple square columns, which, despite peeling white paint, still lent their dignity to the rest of the house.
After the coachman had taken the horses around to the stable and come back to unload the luggage, Quinn and Noelle walked up the steps to the porch, which was bare except for an abandoned bird's nest piled with droppings and a rattan rockIng chair with a faded chintz cover.
The muscles in Quinn's jaw tightened. "Welcome to Televea," he muttered as he stepped into the deserted foyer. "There aren't any servants. I'll have to hire some." He lit a lamp that stood on a candlestand just inside the door. Elongated shadows flickered up the walls to the high ceiling and over a worn Persian rug, which was centered on what had once been a beautiful inlaid parquet floor. The coachman looked around curiously as he brought the trunks inside and followed Quinn upstairs with them. When the man was gone, Quinn lit a cheroot and began to wander from one room to the next, as if he had forgotten her. Curious to see the rest of his house, which had been so ill used, Noelle followed him.
In most of the rooms furniture had been pushed to the center and placed under dustcovers. The curtains in the drawing room were faded; the windows in the sitting room hung bare. Everywhere there was the smell of must. In the wing at the left of the house was an empty ballroom with a columned arch that opened into a conservatory where glass walls swept in a graceful semicircle. Although the panes were unbroken, they were so darkened by grime that they were opaque.
The right wing held a long, narrow dining room. An American eagle had been carved into the plasterwork of the once-white mantelpiece. Over the fireplace was a richly detailed painting of a pair of quail signed by the American naturalist John James Audubon.
Noelle could contain her curiosity no longer. "On the ship you told me that Televea had been closed since you left, yet Simon was in Cape Crosse less than a year ago. Where did he stay?"
Quinn pushed aside a pile of rags with the toe of his boot. "He owns a house near the shipyard."
"But why did he let this beautiful house deteriorate so badly?"
"Because he hates it," Quinn said impassively.
"Then why didn't he sell it?" she persisted.
"He did. I bought it from him before I left London."
Noelle looked around the gracefully designed room, wishing, for the hundredth time, that she knew what had happened between Quinn and his father. "How could anyone hate a house like this?" she said, almost to herself.
Planting the heel of one hand against the dusty mantelpiece, Quinn stared down into the cold cavity of the fireplace. "You ask too many questions, Highness, about things that aren't any of your business."
She left Quinn wandering about the house and went upstairs, where she found her trunks in a dusty but pleasant room that adjoined the master bedroom. A search of the wardrobe revealed a pile of sheets. While she made up the bed she thought how grateful she was that Quinn had not demanded she share his room. Still, as she was going through her trunks for a nightdress and robe, she realized she was unconsciously listening for the sound of footsteps. But there was only silence from the other room.
Below in the kitchen, Quinn sat with an open bottle of whiskey. The sight of Noelle walking through the rooms of Televea had disturbed him more than he wanted to admit. Why hadn't he left her in London as he had intended? His loins ached with the desire to possess her. Only his memory of those punishing nights on the ship when she had so stubbornly held herself apart from him kept him from claiming her now. If she weren't so damned beautiful…But then, it was more than her beauty. Everything about her seemed to affect him.
He took another swallow. He was goddamned if he would let it – go on this way any longer! When he decided he wanted to father a child, he'd bring her to his bed. Until then, he'd take his comforts elsewhere. Noelle would bear his children, run his household. That was all!
The next morning, as Noelle sat at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of tea, a knock sounded at the door, distracting her. She opened it to find a group of six women, three white and three black, assembled on the back stoop.