Justine Cole - The Copeland Bride

He took her then, swiftly and silently, night after night. He used her body impersonally while she lay motionless beneath him. No caress or tenderness, no joy for her or, she soon realized, for him. Perhaps that was why she made no effort to stop him. No matter how dearly acquired, she finally had a small measure of revenge.

Each night after he left her berth for his, the disturbing question that had been lying dormant in her mind since he had carried her from Northridge Square and thrust her into the carriage surfaced to demand an answer. Why had she not escaped from him when she had the chance? Could it be that she hadn't wanted to leave? It was a ridiculous notion, she told herself, and tried to put it out of her mind.

During the day Quinn's behavior was courteous. He began to seek her out, at first chatting politely as he walked with her around the frigid decks, and then, with the captain's permission, initiating her nautical education by leading her through every part of the ship. He pointed out stays and shrouds, hatch coamings and quarter knees, explaining the function of each and talking of the differences between this vessel and ones built by Copeland and Peale. When he spoke of his ships, it was hard for Noelle to reconcile this fascinating man with the one who had abducted her -not once, but three times-raped her, bullied her, and was now taking her away from all she knew to the primitive land that was his home.

When was it they first began to talk of other things-politics, philosophy, even themselves? He told her a little about his boyhood, and although he did not mention either Simon or his mother, she sensed he had lost his childhood early, something she understood only too well. Was that why she found herself speaking about the children in London's tenements, sharing her outrage that such conditions could exist in a city that was supposed to be civilized?

It was not long before she came to realize what a well-educated man her husband was. In addition to having been schooled by private tutors, she learned that he had spent an unhappy year at Eton before he had been sent down as incorrigible. Still, he had received a university education at William and Mary, a small college in Virginia, where he had been an outcast among the wealthy sons of Southern planters because of his outspoken criticism of slavery.

They frequently went to the ship's hold, in which Pathkiller and Chestnut Lady were being comfortably transported.

"Don't be surprised when we arrive if you find the house needs some tending," he said one day as they entered the stall. "I haven't been home for over three years, and Televea has been closed."

"Televea?" She held out a piece of carrot in the palm of her hand for Chestnut Lady.

"It's a Creek word meaning 'home.' Simon bought the house from a Creek merchant who had made a fortune in cotton but overextended himself and was forced to sell off his house and his land."

"Do you mean an Indian?"

Quinn smiled. "Don't be so shocked. The Indians in Georgia don't carry tomahawks anymore. Some of the pureblood still wear turbans and leggings, but most of them dress like the white man."

Noelle was surprised to learn that the Cherokee nation had its own constitution and its own alphabet. Instead of the crude huts she had imagined Indians lived in, there were farms and churches, schools for the children.

"The Indians have become very civilized," Quinn said, his mouth twisting slightly at the corners.

"But isn't that for the best?"

He picked up a brush and began stroking Pathkiller's black coat. "They thought that by adopting the white man's ways, they'd be able to keep their land, but it was a foolish hope."

"How do you mean?"

"Treaties were made, then they were broken. The Cherokees have very little land left them. A tiny corner of North Carolina and Tennessee, a small piece of Alabama, and the very northern tip of Georgia. And now, what little they have has been taken, too."

Thoughtfully he fingered Pathkiller's mane, the brush idle in his hand. "Last May Congress passed the Indian Removal Bill. All of the eastern tribes-the Seminole, the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and the Cherokees-were ordered to give up their homeland for territory in the west, territory that they don't want."

"Does no one speak out for the Indians?"

Quinn nodded. "A few. But it hasn't changed the outcome."

"And so," Noelle said thoughtfully, "the Cherokees have to abandon their homes for an unsettled land. Have they gone yet?"

"Barely two thousand of them. The rest-more than sixteen thousand-have stayed, hoping for a miracle."

"Do you think there will be one?"

"It's been a long time since I've believed in fairy tales, Highness. The Cherokee nation is going to be broken."

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.

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.