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.

"Miz Copeland?"

"Yes?"

"I'm Dainty Jones, your new cook."

It was a moment before Noelle found her voice. Dainty Jones was the tallest woman she had ever seen and certainly one of the thinnest. She had closely cropped ginger hair, its color the only reminder of her Scots-Irish ancestors, and ruddy skin stretched tight over angular bones. Her face was shaped much like an hourglass-broad at the top, sunken at the cheeks, broad again at the chin-and her accent spoke of the backlands.

"How do you do, Miss Jones," Noelle finally managed.

"Call me Dainty."

Shouldering her way into the kitchen, she continued her introductions. "This here's Bessie Pugh. That's Grace Mahoney. She's good with a needle, so you better take her as your maid. Them two is Favor and Evangeline Patterson. They don't have no experience, but they're hard workers. That one bringin' up the rear is Earline Wilcox. She's shy of strangers, so I 'spect you better leave her stay in the kitchen and help me. Mr. Copeland said the men'd be over tomorrow to start work on the outside."

Although Noelle did not know it at the time, it was not customary to have servants of both races in the same household. But in Cape Crosse, those who wanted Copeland wages had to be willing to work together.

She surveyed the group of women who stood assembled in the kitchen. From the towering Dainty Jones to the ebony-skinned Patterson sisters, they were a far cry from the proper English servants of her experience. But she couldn't allow herself the luxury of misgivings. Constance was not here to help her, and she certainly had no intention of running to Quinn. She had a household to manage, and she was going to have to do it by herself.

By the end of her first week at Televea, Noelle had absorbed herself in the challenge of restoring the beauty of the old house, taking time out only to write Constance a long letter describing her new household and her unorthodox servants. She did not mention Quinn at all. As the days passed, she flew from one place to the next-attic to storeroom, kitchen to bedroom, directing her servants at their tasks, sometimes stopping to sweep a floor or scrub out a corner herself.

She began with four rooms: the dining room, drawing room, and two front bedrooms. They were scoured from floor to ceiling, rugs were beaten, floors polished, windows washed. Years of accumulated grime were removed from the lovely parquet floor in the front hallway. The furniture was uncovered and rubbed with lemon oil and beeswax until it shone.

The servants proved to be good workers, and Dainty Jones's cooking contradicted her skeletal form. Soda biscuits and griddle cakes, pies and Indian puddings, a Brunswick stew full of butter beans and red pepper-all of them poured generously from her fragrant kitchen.

True to his word, Quinn sent a small crew of men to restore the exterior of the house, and it was soon festooned with ladders and scaffolding. On the days when the winter rains fell, Noelle pulled the workers inside to paint and do carpentry.

She rarely saw her husband during those first exhausting weeks, and he made no attempt to enter her bedroom. Other than approving her progress in the house and agreeing to take her to Savannah as soon as he could get away so she could make the purchases she needed to finish the job, he had little to say to her.

One day she overheard the maids gossiping about a woman named Kate Malloy who ran an illegal gambling house for the upper-class gentlemen of Cape Crosse and its environs. From their conversation, she gathered that a game of poker was not all that was available at Kate Malloy's. It had been difficult for her to imagine a man as virile as Quinn going for long without a woman, and now she suspected that all his late nights were not being spent at the shipyard. So much the better, she told herself. Let Quinn take his lust elsewhere. Nothing could make her happier!

Several weeks after her arrival, an incident occurred that left Noelle vaguely uneasy. She was behind the house, shaking out a small Oriental rug she had found on one of her forages to the attic when she looked up to see a strange man standing near the smokehouse, watching her. He had a barrel chest, thick, powerful limbs, and a head that was abnormally small for so large a man. She could not see the color of his hair, hidden beneath a battered felt hat, but she could see his eyes. Small and malevolent, they bored into her. For a moment neither of them moved, and then the stranger spat insolently into a pile of dead leaves at his feet and disappeared back into the trees.

That evening, she mentioned the incident to Quinn. He made inquiries among the men who had been working at the house that day, but no one else had seen the stranger. Within a few days, she had put the encounter out of her mind.

Noelle learned from Dainty that the women of the community and nearby plantations had agreed among themselves to postpone calling until she was settled. "You can bet they don't like waitin', Miz Copeland," Dainty said, chuckling, one morning as she sank the heels of her bony hands into a mountain of bread dough. "But they're too polite to do anythin' else. Any female in this part of Georgia who's older'n fifteen or younger'n fifty has set her sights on Mr. Copeland at one time or 'nother, and now curiosity's eatin' away at all of 'em faster'n maggots on week-old meat. They want to see the woman who finally managed to catch him. Oo-ee!" Dainty chortled. "They sure is some curious ladies jes' waitin' fer the chance to set their eyes on you!"

Chapter Thirty-one

One day, while the workmen were eating their lunches in Dainty's kitchen, Noelle stepped into her sitting room to survey their progress with the painting. As she studied the ceiling moldings high above her, she saw a section they had missed. The heavy ladder was off to the side a bit, but she calculated she could reach it if she rested her weight on one foot and leaned out.

After loading a brush with paint, she hitched up her skirts and carefully climbed the ladder. When she reached the top, she held on with the tips of her fingers and, leaning far out with the brush, she dabbed at the offending spot.

"Good God!"

His voice startled her so that she nearly lost her balance. As it was, she dropped the brush, which promptly smeared the freshly painted baseboard.

"What the bloody hell do you mean sneaking up on me that way!" she exclaimed. "Just see what you've made me do!"

He moved over to the base of the ladder and looked up at her with amusement. "If I'd known you were so handy with a paintbrush, Highness, I wouldn't have hired all these workmen."

"Why are you home at this time of day?" she snapped.

"I left some papers in my bedroom." He grinned up at her. "Are you planning to stay up there all day?"

"I was just coming down," she said stiffly as she began descending the ladder, trying not to catch either her skirt or her petticoats. The business was made more difficult by Quinn grinning up at her, obviously enjoying his unrestricted view of her lacy underthings.

"I should come home during the day more often. I had no idea I was missing so much."

"Don't be infantile," she flared, stepping down off the last rung.

She was about to sweep from the room when she stopped herself. This was the perfect opportunity to confront him. It galled her that he had forced her to come to Cape Crosse so he could fulfill his promise to Constance, yet now that she was here, he hadn't once mentioned showing her the shipyard. If he thought that after all that had happened she was still wiling to turn over control of her shares to him, he was about to be reinformed.

"I want to visit the shipyard."

"Don't you have enough here to keep you busy?"

"It's not a matter of keeping busy, Quinn," she said sweetly, knowing that even if he wanted to, he wouldn't break his word to Constance. "I just want to keep an eye on what's mine."

She could tell by the cold look that settled around his eyes that he didn't like her comment; however, he nodded begrudgingly. "Have one of the men bring you around tomorrow."

Her face as she turned to leave the room did not quite conceal her pleasure over the small victory. "I'll do that, Quinn."

With a groom to lead the way, Noelle rode Chestnut Lady the two miles to the shipyard. She had taken particular care with her appearance that day, coiling her hair low on her neck in a simple but elegant arrangement that she set off with tortoiseshell combs. She chose a fawn riding habit trimmed with dark brown piping and, as a final touch, settled the topaz ring on over her wedding band.

The shipyard was larger than she had imagined and bustling with activity. There were ships in various stages of construction, each one surrounded by piles of wood and mountains of fresh shavings. Lining the yard were at least a half-dozen buildings, some a single story open at the sides, others taller and enclosed. The sound of iron being hammered told her one belonged to the shipsmith; another she guessed to be a warehouse. She watched a wagon pull up at a third to receive a load of canvas through the door of the loft. At the end of the yard was a wharf where a large ship with a team of workmen crawling through its rigging was anchored. The smell of wood shavings, tar, and old hemp permeated everything.

"Afternoon, Miz Copeland."

"Why, hello, Carl."

The flaxen-haired Swede who had done some work at Televea the week before biushed with pleasure that she had remembered his name. "If you're lookin' for Mr. Copeland, he's over watchin' the planking. I'll go tell him you're here."

"No, don't bother. I'll go over myself."

Noelle walked toward the group of men Carl had indicated and watched them curiously. They were standing at the base of the frame of a ship, its bare timbers towering over them like the rib cage of a giant animal skeleton. Off to one side, fires burned under large kettles that were shooting their steam into long enclosed boxes.

While Noelle watched, there was a cloud of white steam as one of the boxes was opened and two men wearing leather gloves reached in with hooks to extract a steaming plank of wood. As it whipped loosely in the air, pliable from the moist heat, they climbed up to the exposed ribs at the bow of the skeleton ship and, before it could stiffen, began clamping it down so that it conformed to the curve of the frame.

"I don't like the way that one looks, Pat. Take it off and try another strake."

As Quinn moved around the front of the frame he caught sight of her, his admiring glance telling her that the extra pains she had taken that morning with her appearance were worth the effort.

"Take over, Pat. Any more of that wood looks green, you let me know."

As he approached, Noelle shielded her eyes with her hand from the wintry midday sun. "I don't want to pull you away from your work, Quinn."

"I'm done here. It's a good time to show you around." He led her to a large frame building at the front of the yard. Over the doorway was a wooden sign with intaglio letters of shining gold:

COPELAND AND PEALE, SHIPBUILDERS

CAPE CROSSE, GEORGIA

LONDON, ENGLAND

Noelle looked up at the sign and smiled. "I see the British have been put in last place as usual."

Quinn laughed. "Old Tim told me that when Simon first had the sign hung, it read the other way around and kept disappearing. He'd have a new oce made and, within a day, it'd be gone, too.

Finally he took the hint and changed the order of the towns. Nobody's touched it since except to repaint the letters."

For the first time, Noelle noticed a small group of men standing to the side.

"Afternoon, Boss."

Quinn took Noelle by the arm and led her over to the men, and he introduced her. It was a pattern that was to repeat itself as they made their way through the yard, leaving each man anxious to go home and tell his wife that he had met Mr. Copeland's bride that day.

As the afternoon progressed she found that she remembered much of what Quinn had told her while they were on board the Dorsey Beale, and now it was surprisingly easy for her to make the mental connection between the incomplete structures before her and the finished ship. When she correctly identified a carling and then a breast hook, she felt as much satisfaction as she had the day she had finished Robinson Crusoe.

"So you finally decided to let her visit us, Quinn."

Noelle turned to see a pleasant-faced young man in a frock coat walking toward them.

"Noelle, this is Julian Lester, our business manager."

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Mrs. Copeland."

She liked him immediately, and they were soon calling each other by their first names and chatting about the responsibilities of his position.

"You can't imagine how glad we all are to have Quinn back. I do much better with ledgers and contracts than with caulking mallets and lathes. Simon and I are much the same. That's why we've needed Quinn so badly."

"Julian exaggerates," Quinn said. "He's done a fine job these past two years."

"I'm just glad it's over now, and we can settle down to building the best ships on the North Atlantic." He turned toward the sloop behind them. "We'll be launching her soon. Why don't you come and watch?"

"I'd like that," Noelle answered.

As he was ready to leave them, he said, "My wife will never forgive me if I don't ask you if you're ready for company, Noelle."

"I'd enjoy meeting her," she assured him. "Just warn her that she may have to crawl over ladders to get in the front door."

After Julian Lester left them, Quinn led her out to the wharf and then, taking her hand, helped her onto the anchored frigate. His hand felt comfortable as it clasped hers, cool and strong, a little rough from the work it had been doing. She made no protest when he did not immediately let her go.

"These masts are made from spruce. We float the trees down the river and finish them smooth in the spar shop. Sailors are superstitious, so we never step a mast without putting a silver coin under its butt."

Abruptly he craned his neck and pulled away from her. "No, Frank. You need more tension on that stay. Slack off on the shroud!"

As quickly as that, he had forgotten her and was at the ratlines, climbing up into the rigging as easily as if he were mounting a staircase. Noelle watched him for a while and then began wandering about the frigate, speaking to the men as she passed but being careful to stay out of their way. She heard Quinn's laughter and looked up to see him climbing even higher, supremely confident in this world of which he was the undisputed master.

Later, as she rode toward Televea, she reviewed the afternoon. The shipyard fascinated her, and she vowed that she would go there frequently and learn all she could. As she rounded a sharp bend in the road Chestnut nickered and tossed her head nervously. Noelle reached out to pat her neck. "There now, Chestnut. What's the-"

Suddenly a horse shot across the road from a stand of trees on the side. As Chestnut began to rear, a large fist reached out and clamped itself around the bridle, bringing the mare back under control. "Need some help, little lady?" The voice was sneering and unpleasant.

Noelle jerked around in her saddle. Her heart lurched as she stared into the small, malevolent eyes of the man she had seen standing by the smokehouse at Televea. "What do you think you're doing?" she demanded, her hand instinctively tightening on her riding crop.

Insolently he doffed his felt hat, revealing thin, straw-colored hair. "Jes' wanted to pay my respects to the bride." His eyes slid down over her body. "Looks to me like you couldà done better than that bastard Copeland."

Noelle glanced uneasily at the hand still clamped around her bridle. "Who are you?" she asked, keeping her voice cold and even.

"Name's Baker, little lady. Luke Baker." He studied her expressionless face. "That name don't mean nothin' to you, does it?"

"Should it?"

"Jes' thought your husband mighta mentioned me. Him and me go back a long way."

Suddenly Noelle remembered a conversation she had overheard between Simon and Quinn during those last days in London. "You're the man who was suspected of setting fire to the warehouse, aren't you?"

"Don't know nothin' about no fire." He grinned unpleasantly as he said it, and Noelle decided that he was lying.

"Let go of my horse, Mr. Baker," she snapped. "This instant!'"

His small eyes raked over her. "Tell me, little lady," he jeered. "You ever get lonesome at night? I hear between the shipyard and Kate Malloy's, your high-and-mighty husband don't spend a lot of time at home."

Noelle lifted her riding crop and slashed it down across the fist that held the bridle. Baker gave a startled yelp of pain, but to her dismay, did not release his grip. "You little bitch," he snarled, jerking the crop from her with his free hand. "You're gonna pay for that."

"No, Baker. You're the one who's going to pay."

In their struggle, neither of them had heard Quinn approaching on Pathkiller from the other side of the bend. Baker stared at the pistol trained at his heart. Slowly he released his grip on Noelle's mount.

"Put that gun away, Copeland. I ain't done nothin'."

Quinn did not take his eyes off Baker. "You're wrong, Luke. I sent one of my men for the sheriff as soon as I heard you'd been seen lurking around the yard. You're going to be spending some time in jail."

Baker licked his lips nervously. "What for?"

"Trying to burn down my shipyard last year," Quinn scoffed contemptuously. "What happened? You couldn't get to me so you went after the shipyard instead?"

"You're bluffing," Baker sneered. "I wasn't anywhere near that shipyard. And I got witnesses to prove it."

"I've seen your friends. Baker, and I don't think their word will count much with a jury. Besides, I've got my own witnesses. Ned McLoughlin and Carl Bremer saw you that night."

Baker stared impotently at the gun trained so unwaveringly upon him. "You're lying! There weren't any witnesses to that fire."

"Oh, but there were. We knew you'd show up again as soon as you heard I was back from England. Ned and Carl have just been biding their time, waiting to tell their stories to the judge." Noelle saw fear flickering in Baker's eyes. "You're not a stupid man, Baker," Quinn said, "but you've let your hatred for me ruin your judgment. You should have stayed away."

Baker could no longer contain his rage. "You son of a bitch!" he screamed, drops of spittle collecting in the corners of his mouth. "Stay away? After you killed my brother?"

"Your brother attacked an unarmed man."

"He was an Injun!" Baker spat. "You killed a white man for an Injun!"

Quinn's eyes narrowed dangerously, and Noelle saw his muscles tense. Later she wondered what would have happened if the sheriff had not ridden up at that moment with some of the men from the shipyard.

After they had taken Baker away, Quinn turned to her. "Are you all right?"

She nodded. "Baker was the man I saw near the smokehouse."

Quinn dismounted and picked up her riding crop from the road. "I suspected it was him, but I wasn't sure. Until today, nobody else had seen him. Then, right after you left the yard, one of the men told me somebody thought they'd spotted him near the gate." He rested his hand on the back of her saddle and handed the crop to her. "You should have waited for the groom to ride back with you, Noelle. I've told you I don't want you riding alone around here."

"Don't try to put a leash on me, Quinn Copeland," she flared. "I can take care of myself. I had my knife in my boot and was just waiting for the chance to use it." Without waiting for a response, she dug her heels into Chestnut's flanks and galloped off down the road.

Chapter Thirty-two

The next afternoon, Julian Lester's wife, Emily, came to call. In appearance, she was much like her husband, with the same soft brown hair and hazel eyes. As Noelle led her through the completed rooms she found herself warming to her as quickly as she had to Julian.

"You've done so much here," Emily marveled as they returned to the drawing room. "Televea is going to be even more beautiful than it was when I was a child."

"I didn't realize you'd lived here so long, Emily."

"Oh, my, yes. At Darcy Hall, not a mile away. Goodness, I spent almost as much time at Televea as I did there. Of course, we all did. We were drawn here like bear cubs to honey."

"Why was that?" Noelle asked, trying to imagine this house full of children.

"Because of Amanda. We all loved her."

Although Noelle had never heard her name, she knew Emily must be referring to Quinn's mother. "Tell me about her. Quinn speaks so little of his childhood."

"Oh, Noelle, she was something, 'deed she was. We all had secret guilty dreams about our parents disappearing. Not dying, mind you." Emily laughed. "We were too civilized for that. Just mysteriously disappearing for a while so we could come to live at Televea.

"Our mothers all called her 'Poor Amanda' because her servants took advantage of her, and she couldn't keep house. They'd give her their recipes for furniture polish or tell her how to get the muddy tracks off the stairway carpet. She'd just laugh and tell them she was too busy playing with her son and keeping her husband happy to have time for such foolishness. Oh, my, how they used to sigh over her. But they loved her, too. She'd delivered most of their babies."

"What did she look like?"

"There's a painting of her somewhere. I suppose Simon took it down after she died. She wasn't beautiful, not like you are. But she was striking. Strong features. Dark hair that she always wore in a sort of braided coronet on her head and, ob, my, you never saw a woman who cared less about clothes. Why, she'd take us into the woods, wearing a new dress, and before you'd know it, she'd be dragging her hem in the mud at the riverbank while she showed us how to catch fish without poles. Simon used to complain that he had to build an extra ship every year just to replace the clothes she ruined. He'd always laugh when he said it, though, and we knew he didn't really mind."

Emily smiled, and there was a faraway look in her eyes. "We all envied Quinn so much. They treated him differently than our own parents treated us. They were always touching him, I remember. Every time he walked by, one of them would rumple his hair or hug him or sometimes just pat his arm. I remember one day Simon kissed him on the top of his head in front of the other boys. How they all teased him! But he only laughed and said that if they didn't mind themselves, he'd tell Simon to kiss them, too."

Emily sighed. "Of course, it all changed after she died."

"How did it happen?"

"Malaria. It was real bad that summer. What a sad time that was. Nothing ever stays the same, I guess."

She gave a small embarrassed laugh. "Goodness me, Noelle, I sound just like Julian's Aunt Cornelia with my reminiscing. He says I've been acting strangely ever since I discovered I was in the family way." There was pride in her voice as she confided that after seven years of marriage, she and Julian were finally expecting a child in the summer.

"I hope it doesn't take so long for you and Quinn. It would be nice to have our babies close together."

Noelle smiled noncommittally, glad now that she had not shown Emily the upstairs of the house. Somehow, she doubted that her new friend would understand why she and Quinn were sleeping in separate bedrooms.

After Emily had gone, Noelle poured herself a cup of tea and wandered distractedly into her sitting room, her footsteps echoing on the bare floor. She ambled over to the front window and gazed thoughtfully out. She didn't see the hedges that were now clipped back from the walk or the brick driveway that curved so gracefully up to the front of the house and no longer had weeds growing between its cracks. All she saw was Amanda Copeland.

How vivid Emily had made her. Was that why, now, she seemed so close? Did she know, even from her grave, what a hard, driven man her son had become, hating the father he had once loved, happy only with his ships? Was she trying to reach out to Noelle? Tell her to help her son?

Abruptly Noelle set down her cup and made her way, as if by instinct, to a room she had entered only once before. It had been a nursery, she guessed, before it had become a schoolroom. Among the dusty trunks and old chests, she found the evidence of her husband's boyhood: primers with childish pictures and misspellings in the margins; a wooden ark; a battalion of lead soldiers, their bright red uniforms chipped and faded. There was an airy wooden cradle with spindle sides and, behind it all, as she had somehow known it would be, the painting of Amanda Copeland, carefully wrapped in layers of protective cloth.

It was a full-length portrait of a woman wearing a red dress with a white fringed shawl draped over it. At the base of her throat hung a small silver disk, the same one that Quinn now wore. Emily had described her well: black hair, a strong nose, dark eyes set a bit farther apart than fashion dictated.

Noelle sat for some time studying the portrait and thinking about the woman Amanda Copeland must have been. Finally she replaced the cloth and left.

Quinn had left word with the grooms that Noelle was only permitted to ride to the south and east of the house, not into the wooded area that bordered the rear. The restriction had begun to chafe at her even before the incident with Luke Baker. Now that he was safely in jail, she decided there was no longer any need for such caution. And so, the afternoon after Emily had made her visit, Noelle impulsively turned toward the woods, ignoring the groom who called out to her from the stable door. Chestnut Lady's hooves silently crushed the sprouting seedlings that had unwisely sought haven on the narrow path. She wouldn't go any distance, she decided; just far enough to ease her resentment.

She had been exploring the clearing for some time, humming tunelessly to herself and wandering around the ruins of an old cabin before she realized she was not alone. Her first thought was of Baker. As the icy, prickly warning of danger shot down her spine, she was conscious of how well the dense overgrowth had shut out the strength of the late afternoon sunlight and of how far she had strayed from her tethered mare.

Still humming softly, she bent over and adjusted her riding boot as if there were something wrong with the heel and, at the same time, slowly extracted her knife from the other boot. Sliding it into her pocket, she began casually making her way toward her horse.

She still had some distance to go when a twig cracked ominously close to her. She began to run, darting around the back of a clump of cypress in a rapid change of direction designed to lose her pursuer. She wove through the trees as agilely as she had once run through the twisting streets of London. But she was city bred, and she had not counted on the small roots growing loosely above the surface of the sandy loam; roots thin, but strong, and ready to snare the leather toe of a riding boot.

The side of her hip hit first. Just before the rest of her body slammed against the ground, she felt her hair snag on the jagged crown of a severed tree trunk. Turning to free herself, she sucked in her breath. There, planted firmly on the ground next to her, was a pair of moccasins.

Her heart hammering, she pulled herself up, first noting the buckskin leggings and then the rifle slung across the front of a tuniclike homespun shirt before her eyes fell on his face. All that Quinn had told her about the Indians adopting the ways of the white men fled from her mind as soon as she saw the series of concentric circles tattooed on one broad cheek and the silver disks hanging from his ears. He looked surprised at the knife she thrust toward him.

"Don't come near me!" she shouted, beginning to back away toward her mare.

But he didn't heed her warning. As she saw him prepare to spring she jerked her body to the right. He had already made the leap in the direction of her movement before he realized she had tricked him. Flipping the knife over into her left hand and pulling herself back, she caught him on his side with the blade, just below the bottom rib.

It was only a glancing blow. The Indian looked down at his side, more startled than hurt at the crimson stain spreading slowly on the side of his tunic.

"You've drawn blood," he said. "A woman."

It was somehow startling to hear English words come from his mouth, even though she already knew many of the Indians spoke English.

"You threatened me!" She kept the knife blade pointed toward him. "Why were you spying on me?"

"You were running toward the swamp."

Cautiously she lowered her knife, still holding it firmly in her fist but beginning to feel foolish. Something in his straightforward gaze told her he was speaking the truth, that he had been trying to protect her, and it was merely her prejudice that had made her assume she was being attacked.

"I am Wasidan. And you are the white woman Kalanu has married."

Kalanu? Did he mean Quinn? "I'm Noelle Copeland" was all she said.

"Yes. Get your horse. I will lead you back to Televea. You should not have come in this direction; the swamps are dangerous."

Quinn raced toward the woods, his face a thundercloud as he dug his heels into his stallion's already lathered flanks. He'd been a fool to leave orders as if he thought she would obey them. How could a stable boy keep a leash on her when he hadn't been able to do it himself? At least the boy had had the sense to send for him. Quinn would not let himself think about what would happen if he were too late.

He had barely entered the trees before he saw them coming toward him, Wasidan in the lead, riding a biscuit-colored mare, and Noelle following on her chestnut. The relief that coursed through him was quickly replaced by an anger that he struggled to set aside as his old friend spotted him and raised an arm in greeting.

"Kalanu, my friend. It is good to see you."

"And you, Wasidan. It has been too long."

They clasped hands as their horses drew alongside each other. It was then that Quinn noticed the red stain on Wasidan's tunic.

"You've been hurt."

"It's only a scratch. Your woman is as fierce as the wolf."

Quinn's eyes, hard and cold, flickered over her. With a tug on the reins, she swung past the two men and headed toward the stable. She had handed her horse over to the groom and was walking back to the house when he caught up with her, his fingers digging into her arm.

"I'm not done with you yet," he growled through tight lips. "I'll see you inside after I've spoken with Wasidan."

She stepped from the tub and patted herself dry before she wrapped her wet hair with the towel Grace handed her. Quinn had still not returned to the house, even though she had waited downstairs for over an hour before she came to her senses and marched furiously to her room. What was she doing cooling her heels like a kitchen maid? He could just wait for her!

Even the hot tub water could not soothe away her anger. This time he had gone too far. His arrogance had actually put her life in danger! He should have told her it was swampland behind the house instead of issuing those mindless orders to the groom.

She slipped a mauve silk robe over her still damp body and pulled the sash tight around her waist. "The blue muslin will do for tonight, Grace."

Suddenly the front door slammed with a vengeance. Only Quinn could enter a house so violently. Noelle instructed Grace to tell him she would be downstairs presently, but the girl's hand had barely touched the knob before the door was thrown open.

"Go downstairs," he ordered the startled maid.

"She stays right here. You can go down and wait until I'm dressed."

He jerked his head toward the door. "Get out of here, Grace." Nervously the girl did as she was ordered.

"What in the hell did you think you were doing?"

His jaw was taut and his lips barely moved as he challenged her. Dimly he realized that his anger was out of proportion to her deed, but he couldn't forgive her for the fear she had sent racing like poison through his veins when he had discovered she was in danger.

"Can't you follow simple instructions? Do you always have to defy me?"

Noelle's eyes flashed golden currents of belligerence even as one part of her registered how achingly handsome he was-head thrown back, legs spread wide apart, hands resting in fists on his hips.

"How dare you come in here accusing me! I don't follow orders that have no explanation."

"I don't need to give you any explanations."

"By not telling me that was swampland, you put my life in jeopardy."

"You put your own life in jeopardy and the life of my friend with your damned knife!"

"Your friend," she scoffed. "That savage attacked me!" This was not only unfair, but untrue, and Noelle knew it. Still, she did not take back what she had said, because she saw the words had fallen on him like the lash of a whip. A terrible excitement built within her at the dangerous narrowing of his eyes. Propelled by loneliness, by a bedroom door whose latch was never tested, by an unspeakable yearning for something more than distant politeness from this man, she deliberately pressed him.

"You sicken me with your talk of how persecuted the Indians have been. If this is a sample of what happens when they live near the white man, I think the government is right to move them all away." Lifting her chin, she walked toward him with measured steps, calculating her words as she went. "They're filthy savages, Quinn, no matter how you try to disguise it. They're a threat to every white woman who strays farther than her front porch."

"So, the little guttersnipe who cheated and lied her way out of the slums is now judging other people!"

"People!" she jeered, her moist lips trembling with the danger and excitement of what she was doing. "They're animals!"

"Are we, now?"

Her breath caught in her throat. "What are you saying?"

"If I'd realized it was so important to you, I'd have told you long ago that I'm Cherokee, but, frankly, it didn't occur to me."

"I don't believe you!" It was a lie. She did believe! Amanda's portrait had already told her the truth, had already warned her of the madness of inciting him.

"You don't want to believe me because you're afraid."

"I'm not afraid!"

"You should be," he sneered, his mouth thinning into an ugly line of contempt. "You've heard what Indians do to white women."

Jerking the towel from her head, he entangled his bruising hands in her mass of damp hair. "Does it frighten you now, Highness, having a savage so close to your beautiful hair? Can you taste the fear in the back of your mouth like cold metal against your tongue?"

He twisted his fingers around the long piece of silken hair growing from her crown and yanked on it until her eyes teared with pain. "This is where the Cherokee takes a scalp. Only this place. Sometimes the victim even lives to tell about it."

"Get your hands off me," Noelle cried out.

"It's too late for that."

Dropping her hair, he pushed her back against the wall and split the fragile silk of her robe. The fabric fell to her waist, where the knotted sash kept it from going farther. His eyes raked her nakedness, then he slid his hands roughly down her neck, past her shoulders to her breasts.

"Look at my hands on you. See how white your flesh is against mine. Even your nipples aren't as dark as my skin."

She shuddered as she looked down at his massive dark hands and watched the calloused palms knead her tender tips.

"It's not just the sun that has stained my skin. It's the blood of the Cherokee."

She swung out at him with her fists and began spitting out inflamed, exciting oaths until his mouth clamped down hard on hers, and he parted her lips with a tongue that was unwilling to please but eager to punish. Like a vixen, Noelle bit down. When he jerked back from her, his eyes black with fury, she ran, knowing that no matter how swiftly she fled, he would catch her.

He tore off the sash of her robe when he spun her around, and the fabric snared her ankles, sending her naked body sprawling to the floor. Before she could bring herself up, he deliberately stepped down on her hair, moving his leather boot close to her scalp. Pinned down with her cheek pressed into the carpet, she listened helplessly as he removed his clothing above her. He had told her she should be frightened of him, and now, too late, she was.

He moved his foot. His arm grasped her around the waist and hurled her to the bed. She thrashed helplessly under him while he foraged her mouth in a crushing assault filled with the passion of rage and tasting of the blood she had drawn when she bit him. His legs pried hers open, and then he reared back and poised himself to enter her. As she felt him ready to ram his anger deep within her, tears clouded her vision. How ugly this had become, this wild assault she had led him to.

Closing her eyes, she turned her head to the side and braced herself for the searing pain of an entry for which she was not yet ready. He was suddenly still, and the room echoed with the sound of their ragged breathing. Instead of the brutal invasion that she feared, his hands found her breasts, and her tears began to dry as, despite her fear, the coral buds hardened under his rough caress. She felt his touch slide down her sides and brush through the soft, tight triangle at the juncture of her thighs. Then she moaned as he invaded her with his touch, testing her desire in the only way he could trust.

His lips began teasing her nipples, then biting them, bringing her such agonizing pleasure that she thought she would go mad. His mouth moved on to her smooth belly, her thighs, cutting into the tender skin, biting and sucking at her flesh. She cried out his name as, intimately, he violated her with the wrath of his tongue.

He brought her to the brink of fulfillment and then pulled away, leaving an aching void that yearned to be filled. Their eyes clashed -locking, hating, wanting. Imperiously she arched her hips, and he drove himself into her with all the remaining force of his anger. Wrapping her legs tight about him, she strained against his body, pulling him down and parting her lips so she could taste the rugged planes of his face with her tongue and teeth. She was barely conscious when she sobbed her fulfillment, and he shuddered convulsively within her.

Later, when he sat up and dropped his legs over the side of her bed, she reached out a restraining hand and touched his arm. "Quinn, I didn't mean what I said earlier," she whispered miserably. "I've guessed for some time that you were Indian from Amanda's portrait and the silver disk you wear. I'm sorry. I deliberately goaded you. It was wrong of me."

Without a word, he disappeared into the dressing room.

Noelle fell back on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. What devils had driven her to that desperate madness? It had been insanity to incite him as she had. Suddenly she began to shiver. Turning on her side, she drew up her knees.

From his bedroom, Quinn heard her moan. He rushed in to find her huddled in a tight ball under the covers. Her hair was a tangled mass, and he carefully brushed it back from her ravaged face, then he eased the blankets from her body. He sickened as he looked down.

"My God, Highness." His voice was ragged. "Look what I've done to you."

Even as he tucked the covers back around her, he couldn't erase the memory of the bruises that were already marring her beautiful flesh. "I should never have brought you here. We're poisoning each other."

She turned her face into the pillow and began to sob. He slid his arms under her and gently carried her in her blanket cocoon to a chair, where he held her in his lap and stroked her hair. After a while, he began speaking softly to calm her, first talking about everyday things and then telling her stories of his boyhood. He spoke of treasure hunts, of teasing Emily and taking his lessons with Julian, of Amanda climbing trees with him, fishing, teaching him to track and use a bow and arrow, of everything except the feelings churning inside him.

It was as much the gentle closeness of him as it was his words that quieted Noelle. "I wish I'd known your mother," she finally murmured into his damp shirtfront.

"She would have liked you, Highness." He smiled. "She liked unconventional women."

"Will you tell me about her, Quinn? Really tell me this time."

"What would you like to know?"

Everything! she wanted to say. Everything that has been hidden away from me, that has made you a bitter, driven man. But instead she only asked, "How did she and Simon meet?"

Quinn was quiet for so long that she didn't think he was going to answer her question, but she was wrong. His answer, however, left her stunned.

"Simon bought her."

"Oh, no!" She began to tremble again.

Carefully Quinn eased her down into the chair and disappeared through the dressing room. He returned with a glass of brandy, which he held up to her lips. When she had taken several swallows and was steadier, he moved to a wing chair across from her. Stretching his legs out in front of him and sipping from the remaining brandy, he told her the story of Simon and Amanda, all of which he had not learned himself until after his mother's death.

Quinn explained that Amanda's father was a white trapper, her mother a pureblood Cherokee. She was raised in her mother's village near the Georgia-Tennessee border. Her parents died within a short time of each other when she was fifteen, and her father's brother, a miserly man named Carter Slade, came for her. He took her to his farm near Augusta, where he worked her from dawn until long after dark.

One evening, Simon appeared at the Slade farm, leading a lame horse. He asked for shelter and, for a price, Slade agreed. That night, Slade saw Simon watching his niece, and when she left the room, he asked if he wanted to buy her.

At first, Simon had laughed. It was illegal; Cherokees hadn't been sold into slavery since they had fought with the British during the Revolutionary War. But Slade insisted that as a Cherokee, Amanda would honor any agreement a member of her family made.

And so, Simon Copeland, a man who didn't believe in slavery, a man who had never owned a slave, bought Amanda Slade for five hundred dollars.

Simon never knew what Amanda felt when she learned she had been sold, but as Slade had predicted, her honor demanded that she keep the infamous agreement. And so, the next morning, she turned her back on the past and went off with the handsome stranger who now owned her.

Even then, Simon wasn't an impulsive man. He was horrified at what he had done and didn't permit himself to touch her, yet each day he grew more fascinated with her. It was Amanda who finally went to him, giving her love freely, asking for nothing.

"It was a bittersweet moment when Simon realized how much he loved her in return. He was an ambitious man who had planned to make an advantageous marriage, and Amanda had neither money nor background to recommend her. To make matters worse, even though her father was white, she considered herself Cherokee.

"Quinn, none of what you've told me explains your bitterness toward Simon. Even if he did buy her, he took your mother away from a horrible life. From what Emily told me, he was a wonderful father to you, a loving husband-"

"Oh, he was a loving husband, all right!" Quinn exclaimed bitterly. "Everyone in Cape Crosse will tell you that. And a wonderful father. If you press them, even my friends will tell you I've been an ungrateful son to have turned against him. Christ! If I've heard once about Simon taking me everywhere with him on that bay of his, I've heard it a thousand times."

"Then why?" Noelle's eyes pleaded with him to finally tell her the truth, but when she saw the pain etching itself so deeply across his features, she almost wished she had kept her peace.

"He didn't marry her, Highness," Quinn finally said. "Not until a few hours before she died. She was his slave until the end."

"He didn't marry her!" Noelle exclaimed. "What reason could he have had?"

"You should know the answer to that better than anyone. She wasn't a suitable Copeland bride. No family, no education." He stared into the depths of his glass and muttered, "Nothing but a loving heart."

Then he told her how he had overheard the brief, hushed ceremony, trying not to let himself understand what it meant but knowing, without question, that, at the age of twelve, his world had come to an end. Later, when his mother called him to her, she sensed that he had discovered the truth.

"She told me that I mustn't blame him. Said it hadn't been important to her. But I've never been able to forgive him. It was only the threat of having her die leaving me a bastard forever that finally forced him to marry her."

He stood up and walked over to the fireplace, staring down into the dying embers. "After the funeral, I ran away to the Cherokees."

"Did Simon come after you?"

Quinn nodded. "But it took him over a year to find me, and then I was so filled with hatred that he couldn't trust me in the same house with him. That's when he decided to send me to England to stay with the Peales and go to school."

A silence fell between them that Noelle finally broke. "I'm sorry, Quinn," she said simply.

Brusquely he rejected the pity in her voice. "I'm leaving at first light tomorrow for Milledgeville. Wasidan asked me to try to make the governor see reason."

"But you told me there was no hope, that the Cherokee removal to the west was inevitable."

"It's a fool's errand, Highness. But I can't say no to him."

Sleep eluded her that night, and she was still awake at dawn when she heard Quinn riding off. She threw herself from the bed and pulled on her riding habit remembering his words as she did.

"We poison each other," he had said, and he was right.

The bricks were still wet with dew as she cantered down the drive toward the road. Her thoughts turned to Simon. She sensed that he had suffered more than Quinn wanted to recognize and that he was a wiser man now. Instinctively she understood that Amanda had forgiven him even if Quinn hadn't. She wondered if Quinn was capable of forgiveness, tortured as he was by the past, torn by the two conflicting halves of his nature-the proud Cherokee and the master shipbuilder.

Simon… Amanda… Quinn… They had managed to snare her in the tangled web of their lives and make her part of them.

Chapter Thirty-three

After that morning, Noelle had little time to indulge in introspection, for following Emily Lester's example, her new neighbors began to arrive at the door. She soon found that between returning their calls and making frequent visits to the shipyard, she was no longer able to supervise the house and the servants by herself. As had become her habit, she turned to Dainty Jones.

" 'Spect I'd better see if I can find Nathan Davis. Used to work for Miz Burgess 'fore she died. He's the man for the job all right."

And so Nathan Davis was installed as majordomo of the household to double as Quinn's valet when he returned. A gentle man with chocolate skin and a trace of a limp in his left leg, he commanded the respect of the rest of the servants without ever lifting his voice.

Quinn's abrupt departure meant that he could no longer take her to Savannah, and for this Noelle was grateful. The intimacy of a journey together was more than she could have borne. Still, with the main body of the house nearing completion and a wardrobe that desperately needed to be supplemented with dresses more suitable to the Georgia climate, she had to make the trip. When she discovered that Copeland and Peale's own sloops made regular runs to Savannah for supplies, she announced that she was going along and invited Emily to accompany her.

The trip to Savannah helped Noelle temporarily put aside her unhappiness. With Emily companionably beside her, she bought upholstery and drapery fabrics to take back with her, as well as lightweight cambrics and muslins for her dresses. She returned to Televea to find that Quinn was back from Milledgeville, his trip as unsuccessful as he had predicted. Life progressed as usual.

Luke Baker was convicted of arson and sent to the state prison. Quinn immersed himself in his work at the shipyard. The weeks passed and Noelle's bedroom door remained firmly closed. Slowly she was discovering that the longing of her own body was the most formidable enemy she had ever faced.

Even though she had been warned, Noelle was unprepared for the first onslaught of summer. The Georgia sun burned saffron in the sky, and the air was heavy with heat. She discarded all but one of her petticoats and began wearing the new pastel muslin dresses Grace had finished. Nathan hung the beds with mosquito netting and set out lemonade and iced tea in sweating pitchers that puddled the silver trays that held them.

Emily, whose body was now proudly swollen, laughed when Noelle complained. "Honey, you'll be looking back on this as a cool spell when August comes."

Noelle grew to appreciate Televea more than ever when she discovered how much more comfortable it was than the homes of her neighbors. Not only was it exceptionally well shaded, but it had been built on a slight rise to catch the breeze. Why was it, then, that it was becoming more and more difficult for her to fall asleep, even though her bedroom was cool? Why was it that she paced the floor each night, back and forth, until exhaustion overcame her?

One morning she was sitting in the kitchen, reading a cheerful letter from Constance and eating her second slice of fresh bread heaped with the damson plum preserves that Georgina Sinclair had brought with her when she had come by earlier that afternoon.

"You gonna end up plump as Miz Sinclair if you don't watch yourself," Dainty scolded. With her sleeve, she wiped away the faint beads of perspiration that had formed on her upper lip. "First she brings you them pecan pies, then that lemon pound cake, now it's damson preserves. All outta jealousy, if you ask me. She wants you to end up like her!"

"You just don't like her because she said your hickory nut cake was heavier than hers." Noelle laughed, licking a spot of jam from her fingers.

"Go on and laugh. But you jes' watch. I'll bet my great grampa's britches that next week she'll show up with somethin' else." Drying her hands on the tea towel she kept tucked in the side of her apron, she leaned back against the sink. "Still, I guess there's no need to fret. Except for me, I never knowed anybody could eat as much food as you and still stay so thin. You ain't breedin', are you?"

"No, I'm not, Dainty Jones! And when are you going to learn that servants aren't supposed to ask such personal questions?"

"It's all part of my job," Dainty sniffed, not the slightest bit cowed by Noelle's reprimand. "Women who are breedin' need special food to strengthen their blood."

Noelle could clearly see that a lecture on the feeding of pregnant women was forthcoming, and to forestall it, she said, "Dainty, I've decided to have a dinner party. Televea is almost finished, and I think it's time we showed it off. What do you think? Can you manage it?"

Dainty pursed her lips, clearly offended by the question. "I may not be one of your fancy-dancy Frenchified cooks, but I reckon I know a thing or two about puttin' on a dinner party!"

Noelle suppressed a smile. "Fine. I'll leave it to you. Let's say two weeks from Saturday. Plan on eight couples."

Her gown was the color of the inside of a seashell shot through with silver. Somehow, it seemed just right for this special night, which was, she knew, not hers but Televea's. The weather had even been kind that day, and the breeze coming into the house was cool and fragrant from the afternoon's thundershowers.

She straightened one of the curls that teased the corners of her eyebrows and then, as the clock chimed a quarter before the hour, hesitantly went to the door of Quinn's room and knocked. Hearing nothing but silence from within, she opened the door. A lamp was burning, his evening clothes were laid neatly on the bed, but the room was empty. Their guests were scheduled to arrive at any moment, and Quinn wasn't home from the shipyard!

Furiously she stomped down the stairs into the drawing room. She had left a note on his desk last evening, reminding him he must be ready by nine o'clock. Was it too much to ask that this once he could come home before midnight? How humiliating for her to receive their first guests alone.

Just then she heard the front door slam, and she rushed out to see Quinn mounting the steps two at a time, muttering a vile oath under his breath while he yanked his neckcloth loose with one hand and unbuttoned his shirt with the other. Shaking his head, Nathan followed at a slower pace.

She shut the door and sank down into one of the newly upholstered drawing-room chairs, relieved that Quinn was home but still angry with him. To distract herself, she took inventory of the refurbished drawing room.

The pale yellow love seats and bright green carpeting reminded her of lemon sherbets resting on a bed of mint. To accent the lighter green cast of the marble in the mantelpiece, she had selected a paper for the walls with spiraling stripes of the same shade. It was a satisfying room, formal but comfortable, and cool even on the hottest of days.

Nervously her eyes traveled above the mantelpiece. Just that morning she had made the decision, but now she was beginning to have second thoughts. Perhaps on this one issue, she should have consulted him.

It was not long before the doors burst open and Quinn, resplendent in black and white evening attire, entered. His eyes found the portrait of his mother immediately and then darkened ominously as his gaze moved to his wife.

Noelle thrust up her chin defiantly. "This was her home, Quinn. She belongs here."

The sound of voices in the hallway prevented his response.

"Noelle, you found it!" Emily exclaimed as she and Julian stepped into the room with her brother and his wife following closely behind. "Edwin, look! Amanda's back."

Edwin Darcy gazed at the painting over the fireplace. "So she is. That's a portrait of Quinn's mother," he explained to his wife, Madeline. "She was a remarkable woman."

"Do you remember the time she helped us build that raft?" Julian laughed.

Quinn smiled, and Noelle saw that the tension had ebbed from his face. "My first attempt at designing a boat. We had a little trouble keeping her off the banks as I remember, but she was sturdy."

More couples arrived, and their reminiscences were cut short. Soon Nathan appeared at the door to announce dinner. The house glowed with beeswax and candlelight, and Noelle felt a surge of pride as she and Quinn led the way to the dining room and the couples took their places around the lavishly set table. She had discovered that of all their guests only Julian and Emily Lester; Emily's brother, Edwin Darcy; and Wheeler and Thea Talbot remembered Televea when Amanda had been its mistress. The rest had either not known the Copeland family well or arrived after Amanda's death.

The wives who had watched the transformation of Televea taking place described it to their husbands, and the men who were seeing it for the first time were lavish in their praises of what Noelle had done. Quinn looked about as if he, too, were seeing it all with fresh eyes, and when Noelle glanced his way, he lifted his glass and, to her discomfiture, silently toasted her.

Dainty Jones had clearly made up her mind that no one would forget her meal. There were oysters on the half shell, a salad filled with watercress and hearts of palmetto, roast suckling pig, and wild duck stuffed with apples. Biscuits and breads appeared with sweet potato soufflés, onions in cream, and baked celery laced with almonds. Each course had its own wine, and the servants saw to it that all the glasses were kept well filled.

"Steam, Quinn. That's the future. Not sail." The voice of Ralston Witt, president of Cape Crosse's only bank, rose above the other conversations at the table. "Copeland and Peale's going to fall behind if you're not careful."

"We've built several steamships in London already, and we're building another one now," Quinn said, "but the fuel for an ocean voyage takes up so much room, there's no space left for cargo. It's just not profitable yet. Besides, the engines need a lot of improvement before they'll be practical for longer runs."

Witt looked skeptical.

"It's true, Ralston," Julian said. "They're not really that reliable yet."

"Nonsense!" Witt insisted. "Steamships have been making river voyages for years."

Setting down her fork, Noelle smiled politely at her quarrelsome guest. "As I see it, steam is fine for river traffic or coastal voyages, Mr. Witt, where the boats can stop and take on fuel. But it'll be years before a steamship can make the China run competitively. When that does happen, Copeland and Peale will be ready. But until then, my husband will keep building faster sailing ships." She picked up her wineglass and sipped, not unaware of Quinn's faint look of admiration.

"My, my, Noelle!" Georgina Sinclair exclaimed. " 'Deed I had no idea you were such an authority. The rumor I heard must be true."

"What rumor?"

"Why, that you've been spending your spare time at the shipyard."

"I do try to spend one or two afternoons there every week."

"Mercy! Whatever for?"

"I like it. I think women need to take more interest in business."

"Well, whatever do you do?" asked Thea Talbot, clearly astonished. "Are you helping the clerks with their correspondence or working on the accounts?"

"Hardly." Julian laughed. "Last week she was in the shop, rolling oakum with old Tim Mahoney. The week before that she bullied Ned MacLaughiin into letting her climb into the rigging of the Polly Shay."

Quinn dropped his fork on his plate with a clatter that sounded to Noelle like an explosion, but which no one else seemed to have noticed.

"Oh, Noelle. you didn't!" Madeline Darcy emitted an approving tinkle of laughter. "Quinn Copeland, I do believe you've finally met a woman who's more than a match for you!"

Protected by the presence of their guests, Noelle lifted her head and bestowed a grin on him that was so full of mischief that against his will Quinn laughed.

"You may be right, Madeline. But I wouldn't put any money on it just yet."

The heat slowed down work at the shipyard, and at Quinn's request Noelle began to accept many of the invitations they received. She grew fond of the Darcys and Talbots, but it was with Emily and Julian Lester that she was the most comfortable, and the two couples spent an increasing amount of time together. Emily was now large enough to be self-conscious about appearing in public, so the couples restricted themselves to informal picnics and quiet dinners at each other's homes. They talked about books and politics, shipbuilding and roadbuilding, teased each other and laughed about unimportant things.

When they were all together, the Lesters provided a buffer between Quinn and Noelle so that for the first time they could enjoy each other without having to be perpetually on guard. Noelle learned that her husband liked horseracing and dogs, that he disliked cockfighting. Quinn grew more and more fascinated with his wife's quick intelligence and lively wit. If the Lesters noticed that their friends were often curiously formal with each other and never touched except by accident, they kept their observations to themselves.

In July, Julian and Emily's baby was born. They named her Lydia Mae and asked Quinn and Noelle to be godparents at the christening that was planned for the end of August.

Wasidan was frequently at Televea that summer, and Noelle grew to look forward to his visits. It had not taken them long to overcome the awkwardness of their first encounter, and they had since become friends. From him, Noelle learned much of the customs of the Cherokee people as well as of their present struggles. She also discovered that it was Wasidan Quinn had rescued from Luke Baker and his brother.

The Bakers and several of their cronies had seen him one day as he fished in the stream that ran near Televea. They were drunk and began taunting him. Despite the fact that he was unarmed and outnumbered, Wasidan fought them, but the man overpowered him and strung him to a tree. They were torturing him with their knives when Quinn came upon them.

The summer advanced, and the heat settled heavily over Cape Crosse. Each day Noelle pushed the limits of her strong young body-swimming in a small pond she had discovered in the woods behind the house, riding, walking for miles, hoping that exhaustion would drive away the demons that seemed to have taken possession of her at night. It had been five months since the angry night Quinn had last made love to her, and all she could think of as she lay sleepless in her bed were his strong hands on her starved flesh. She began nourishing her old hatred of him, letting it grow along with her need.

Hour after hour, her footsteps traced the perimeters of her quiet room. Sometimes she imagined she heard another set of footsteps echoing from the other side of the connecting door, but she knew only too well that it was her imagination. She had learned enough by now about Kate Malloy and her infamous establishment to be certain that all of her husband's late nights were not being spent at the shipyard.

When Quinn did not come home, she began slipping from the house to the dark stables and taking her mare out with only the moonlight to guide her through the now familiar countryside. Each time she rode, she seemed to find her way past the lane that led to Kate Malloy's.

And if he is there, who do you have to blame but yourself? she thought torturously. You've made it clear that the only way he can have you is to rape you. But Quinn is as proud as you are, and unless you torment him to it, he's not going to touch you.

She knew there was another way. She could go to him, give herself freely, but her pride would not let her. At least now she had his respect even if she had nothing else. If only, she wished, there were a way she could go to him and still keep her pride.

Chapter Thirty-four

"Lydia Mae Lester, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."

The minister's voice echoed resonantly within the walls of the small wooden church as he made the sign of the cross on the tiny forehead of the baby nestled comfortably in Noelle's arms. Lydia Mae smiled toothlessly at her new godmother, and Noelle hugged her in return. She was a beautiful baby, and at the moment, Noelle wished without reservation that she were hers. She looked up at Quinn standing next to her and saw that his face had softened. Their eyes caught, and for a brief moment, there was a union between them.

It was then that Noelle knew what she would do.

A hot afternoon rain began to fall as they made their way back to Televea, and the inside of the closed carriage was stifling. Noelle fanned herself with her gloves and thought about what she would say as she watched little rivulets of rainwater sweat down the window beside her. They rode in silence until the carriage turned into the driveway leading to Televea.

"She's a beautiful baby, isn't she?" Noelle made her voice as casual as she could.

"Yes, she is."

"I've never seen anyone as happy as Emily and Julian."

"They've waited a long time for that child."

Noelle stared straight ahead. "Have you ever thought about having children?"

"I've thought about it."

When he said nothing more, Noelle knew this would be even more difficult than she had imagined. Surely he understood. Why did he have to make it so hard for her?

"Yes! I-I suppose most people have thought about it," she faltered.

His eyes, cold and demanding, caught her. "Highness, what are you trying to say?"

Noelle's tongue flicked out over her dry lips. "Only that- This afternoon when I was holding the baby, I-I realized I was being very unfair to you. We've been married for two years. Of course, we don't have an ordinary marriage, but still-it would be cruel of me to deny you children."

As suddenly as it had started, the rain stopped, leaving the air even heavier than before and the atmosphere in the carriage more oppressive.

"So. Once again you're prepared to do your duty."

"No! Not-not duty exactly. It's just that…" She tried to hide her confusion. "I think it's time we had a child."

Abruptly the carriage stopped. "You do, now." The contempt in each word was so unexpected that she recoiled.

"It-it really doesn't make any difference," she said miserably, wishing she had never started this. "Just forget-"

"No. No! Put in your order!" He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her toward him, beginning to shake her slowly and methodically. "Do you want a boy? A girl? Fair? Dark? Tell me what you want!"

"Stop it!" she screamed, covering her ears against his taunting.

He pulled her hands away and jerked her to within inches of his face. "I won't stud you, Highness!"

The carriage came to a halt, and with a cry of humiliation, Noelle yanked herself away from him and jumped out, stumbling as she ran toward the house.

Quinn stepped to the ground more slowly, watching her with tortured eyes as she disappeared inside. He knew he had never wanted her as much as he did at that moment, but his anger and the sheer force of his will kept him rooted to the spot. She would come to him honestly, or she would not come at all. There would be no more excuses, only her own admission that she wanted him.

Despite the heat, Noelle shut all the windows in her bedroom and pulled the draperies closed until only a thin shaft of light penetrated the dim room from one window where the draperies did not quite meet at the center. Overcome with hatred and humiliation, she could think of nothing except sealing herself away from him, from the servants, from everyone, even herself.

Her dress was damp with perspiration, torn at the hem where she had caught it when she leaped from the carriage, and she pulled it off along with her petticoats, leaving them all in a crumpled heap on the floor. Her hair came undone as she was undressing, and it clung to her damp body and curled in moist tendrils at her hairline. Clad only in her thinnest chemise, she threw herself on the bed and cried. The temperature in the room rose with the final force of the afternoon heat.

When she could cry no more, she rolled over onto her back and threw her forearm over her burning eyes, trying to shut out her mortification as she repeated the scene in the carriage over and over in her mind. The room gradually darkened, but evening provided no relief from the heat now trapped inside.

It was nighttime when a knock sounded at her door. Noelle lay silently. When the knocking continued, growing firmer and more insistent, she snatched a porcelain vase from the table next to her bed and hurled it at the door. The footsteps quickly retreated.

The interruption opened her wound once again, and shame and the suffocating heat of the room choked her until she could barely breathe. She lay motionless, arms at her sides, sweat trickling down between her breasts, drawing one conscious breath after another. A mosquito landed on her bare leg, but she didn't bother to brush it away even when she felt the sting of it drawing out her blood.

The door in the adjoining room opened and then shut. She heard the sound of his movements, water splashing, and, finally, the creak of the bedsprings. Dragging herself from her bed, she began to pace the room, her chemise so wet that it was transparent, her hair tangled honey falling to her waist over glistening shoulders.

Six steps in one direction. Eight in the other. She was almost demented from her hunger for him, her need to have him and still keep her pride. Back and forth. One… two… three… four… One step after another.

Dear God, her desperate thoughts raged, he has driven me to the brink of insanity, poisoned me, but I must have him. I must have his fingers burning into my flesh. My hands on him, kneading muscles like steel. Touching him. Tasting him.

Propelled by a force stronger than her pride, she found the doorknob that separated them twisting in her hands. The moonlight streamed in the open windows of his room, and the fresh air was cold against her wet flesh. He propped himself up on one elbow and watched her come toward him, the sheet that covered his bare chest slipping down to his waist.

She stood at the foot of the bed in a shaft of moonlight so he could see her clearly, so there would be no misunderstanding. Her fingers tugged at the thin blue ribbon that held the bodice of her chemise together. As it came undone in her hands she locked her eyes with his and opened the garment slowly until she had unveiled the gleaming mounds of her breasts to him. Only then did she bend over and peel the damp chemise off.

Even when she was naked, she did not move, did not try to hide from the burning eyes that branded her flesh. Instead, she reached to the back of her neck and, with both of her hands, lifted the weight of her hair high so that nothing was hidden from his gaze.

His nostrils flared, and she felt a flash of triumph. Let him reject me now, her hatred cried.

With her hands still holding up her hair, she walked toward him with the slow seductiveness of Eve and then set one knee up on the side of the bed. "I want you," she said huskily.

With a dark moan, he reached out toward her, but she evaded him. Now it would be on her terms. Slowly she leaned across his chest, lowering herself until her burning nipples were pressed against his cool flesh. Thrusting her fingers roughly into his thick black hair, she clamped his mouth to hers, plunging her tongue between his teeth.

With only her instincts to guide her, she made love to him so agonizingly, so expertly, that when she was done, he could only crush her to him, unable to bear the thought of having her steal away from his side.

That night, she dreamed that her bed was on the side of a vast, rocky hill where low-flying curlews swooped toward her, their wings batting at her face, flying closer and closer until, one by one, they tangled themselves in the wild mass of her hair. She jerked awake to find Quinn's arm pinning her down as he slept, his fingers painfully entwined in the strands of her hair.

With a slow sigh, Noelle released the tension of her nightmare. As her breath warmed his cheek Quinn stirred. His hand released its grip on her hair and slid down her body, cupping itself around one of her breasts. She felt him grow rigid against her leg, and then she was conscious of little else as she gave herself up to the sensations he was arousing.

It was much later when Noelle pulled herself from bed. She smelled of sweat and sex, and all she could think of was getting away from the piercing eyes that watched her so intently and sinking into the tub she had heard Grace filling in the next room.

As if he were reading her thoughts, he climbed out beside her and tilted her chin up. "Ever take a bath with a man before?"

"I certainly have not," she flared, presenting a picture of offended dignity so incongruous with her wild abandonment in bed that Quinn laughed and scooped her into his arms.

"We'll have to do something about that."

She told him his behavior was odious and demanded that he put her down that very instant, but he ignored her half-hearted struggles and lowered them both into the water.

It was a big tub, but it hadn't been designed to hold two people, especially when one of them was as large as Quinn. He draped a dripping calf over the side and watched with amusement as, avoiding his eyes, she lathered a washcloth and began efficiently scrubbing herself.

"You're missing the point, Highness." He grinned, taking the soapy cloth from her and setting it aside. He lathered his own hands and washed her that way, lingering so long on the most sensitive parts of her body that, with a gasp, she finally grabbed the soap away and began to wash him.

She studied his body with open fascination as she slid her hands over him-the rippling muscles, the faint white marks along each side of his spine where his skin had stretched taut when he had grown too quickly as a boy, a jagged scar on his calf.

Not long after they had finished washing each other, they found themselves on Noelle's bed, their bodies leaving a wet imprint on her pale blue bedspread as they satisfied each other in a fashion as old as time.

It was nearly noon when Quinn propped himself up on one elbow and gazed down at her.

"Are you sure the shipyard won't fall apart without you?" she teased.

But he didn't smile. With a question in her eyes, she reached up toward his cheek. Gently he stopped her hand. "Which way is it going to be, Highness?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that from now on, you'll either be in my bed every night as my wife, or you'll stay the hell away from me. You can't have it both ways anymore."

"I'll think about it," she snapped, even though she knew what her answer would be.

"Do that. You have until tonight."

Chafing at his arrogance, she watched him get out of bed and walk to the door that connected the two rooms. "Quinn."

He turned.

"If I do decide to share your bed, don't think anything else has changed between us!" It was her pride speaking, and she immediately regretted her words.

"That's fine with me, Highness. We both know how we feel about each other. Nothing that happens between us in bed, no matter how good, is likely to change that."

His words proved to be too prophetic. At night, they were like two bodies with one mind, joining together with total abandon -nothing held back, nothing feared. But during the day, the hostilities between them escalated. The memories of past betrayals were too fresh.

Although neither would admit it, both were afraid of the terrible attraction that drew them together. They were increasingly cruel to each other, sometimes even trading caustic jibes in the presence of the servants. As the summer ended, their lovemaking grew more violent. It was as if it were a sickness that had spread out of control, advancing beyond their bodies to devour their minds.

Chapter Thirty-five

In September, the activity at the shipyard returned to normal, and Noelle began spending more time there, although she never searched out her husband, and for his part, he ignored her presence. One day she stepped into Quinn's office to shed the short jacket she had worn over her riding skirt, for the day had grown warm. Tossing it on a chair, she noticed a new wooden half mode! sitting on his desk. She picked it up and, as she ran her fingers along the smooth line of the hull, she felt a spark of excitement. The shape was sleeker than anything she had ever seen, its bow leaner and its breadth much further back than was customary. She knew that a half model was the first step toward building a ship. If Quinn had made a model, he must be getting ready to start.

"What the hell are you doing in here! Put that down!"

She jumped and the model slipped from her hand and fell to the floor, knocking out the pins that held it together and sending the wooden layers scattering. It was a simple matter to reassemble it, but Quinn clenched his fist in anger, his eyes turning the color of gun metal. He hated the constriction he felt in his guts whenever he came upon her unexpectedly. Why the hell couldn't she stay home where she belonged-out of his way, out of his life, out of everything except his bed!

"God damn it! Look what you've done! You have no right to be in here!"

"I have every right to be in here, and don't you forget it," she stormed, so hurt by his attitude that she paid little heed to what she was saying even though she realized he was dangerously angry. "I may not own as much of this company as you do, but I own part of it, and I want to know why you didn't tell me you were getting ready to build this ship!"

Her attack was so audacious that for a moment he was speechless. Finally he choked, "Are you seriously suggesting that Ï should be accountable to you!"

Noelle saw she had cornered herself and looked for a graceful way out. "I-I didn't say you were accountable, but I do think you should have kept me informed, especially about something as important as this ship."

"Why, you presumptuous little bitch! I'll keep you informed all right!"

With a shove, he sent her tumbling back into a chair and then, hovering over her, set his foot up on the seat beside her, heedless of the muddy print it was leaving on her skirt. "In the next three years I'm going to build the fastest sailing ship the China Seas have ever seen, and no one is going to stop me. Now, is there anything else you want to know?"

"When do you start building her?"

Quinn felt a glimmer of reluctant admiration at her refusal to back down. "We begin lofting the plans this month." He took his foot off the chair and jerked his head toward the door. "Now, if that's all, I suggest you get yourself home, where you belong."

Angrily Noelle shot up from the chair. "Home and into bed, isn't that what you mean?"

"You said it, not me. But then, I guess you're the best judge of your own character."

"You bastard!" She drew back her arm to slap him, but this time he saw the blow coming and grabbed her wrist, twisting it behind her back.

"By God, if you hit me again, I'll beat you within an inch of your life! I mean it, Noelle. Don't push me any further!"

When he let her go, she stomped from the room and then deliberately spent an hour watching the men sheathe the hull of a sloop with copper before she permitted herself to leave.

That night, their lovemaking was more frenzied than ever as Quinn brought her to one shattering climax after another, but when it was over and they had each moved to separate sides of the bed, she felt hollow and unfulfilled. She was so tired of fighting him! Would it always be this way between them? Their rage disguised as pleasure; their lovemaking full of anger because both of them hated the weakness that was driving them together. A tear slid soundlessly from the corner of her eyes onto the pillow.

"Would you like to hear about the ship, Highness?" Quinn's voice was so low that for a moment Noelle thought she was imagining it.

"If you'd like to tell me," she said softly.

"I'm going to call her an American clipper."

"Clipper. It's a good word. I like it."

"She'll be big-seven hundred and fifty tons-and full rigged. There'll be no gilt on her, no ornament, nothing to distract from that long, thin hull."

He spoke on into the night of his plans, his hopes, and even his worry that Wolf Brandt, the man who had commissioned her, might not be able to find a crew when she was finally ready to go to sea. Sailors, he told her, were deeply superstitious, and a ship so radically different in design from any they had ever seen would invoke their most primitive fears.

"Does Mr. Brandt understand this?" she asked.

"Yes. But when you meet him, you'll see that he's a man who likes to take risks. If he can man her, he knows she'll make him a fortune."

"Quinn?"

"Hmm?"

"If you don't want me at the shipyard anymore, I won't come."

Incredibly he slid his arm under her and gently drew her to his shoulder. "The men like having you there. They think you bring us good luck."

"And what about you?"

It might have been his chin that brushed across the top of her head, but suddenly, Noelle wanted to believe that it was his lips.

"Go to sleep, Highness."

His voice was so gentle that her heart constricted and, in that instant, Noelle knew that she loved him. The unexpectedness of it staggered her. She squeezed her eyes shut and, willing her body to lie still within the strong circle of his arms, tried to tell herself it was an illusion, but the truth was written so clearly inside her that she couldn't deny it. She loved him, had loved him for a long time.

When did it happen? Was it as long ago as that storm-ridden night in Yorkshire when he had pulled her from Ravensdale Tarn and then made love to her, or since they had come to Televea? Had it happened in the passion of their lovemaking or in quieter moments as he had spoken of his Indian heritage or described his ships?

The awful irony of it was not lost on her. She had committed the same folly as dozens of other women. She had fallen in love with Quinn Copeland. But she was much more vulnerable than any of them, because she was bound to him in the eyes of both man and God.

The next evening, their carriage took them to the home of Wolf Brandt. He had issued a dinner invitation only that morning, and Quinn had accepted. As the carriage neared the northern edge of Cape Crosse, Noelle tried to calm herself by recalling what Quinn had told her about the man, but all she could remember was that he was a bachelor. She seemed to remember Quinn telling her Brandt was renting a house that Edwin Darcy owned, but she wasn't certain. Everything had been so muddled for her since last night that nothing seemed to make sense any longer. To add to her confusion, Quinn had been different with her since the moment, not a half hour ago, when he had come up behind her in the hallway as she was making a final check on her appearance in the mirror.

"Don't touch anything, Highness. You're perfect."

She had dressed with special care in a lace-trimmed gown the color of old gold doubloons. It was a romantic dress with something about it that conjured up Spanish ships and plundered treasure. The two of them together, she in her gilded dress and Quinn with his buccaneer's swarthy good looks, seemed as though they belonged in an earlier time.

Now, as Quinn helped her down from the carriage, his hand held hers a fraction of a second longer than necessary. She looked up into his eyes and wondered how she could have ever thought them cold. There was something there he had never before permitted her to see. Was it tenderness? Affection? Had he too tired of the war between them, of the verbal skirmishes, the bed that was too often only another battlefield? Noelle's lips curved tentatively and Quinn smiled in return, his face looking younger than she had ever seen it, almost boyish.

Whatever might have happened between them was cut off by the sound of the front door opening as Wolf Brandt himself stepped out to greet his guests. As soon as Noelle saw him, she was certain she had met him before. Only a few inches taller than she, he was an attractive man in his late thirties with fair hair and gray eyes. None of his features was extraordinary, but there was an elegance about his manner that stirred her memory.

"Quinn, welcome! And Mrs. Copeland. I'm so glad that you could come."

While he ushered them into the house, Noelle tried to recall when she had last heard that faint Germanic accent. There was something so familiar about the way he turned his w's to v's, his th to z.

After the butler took her wrap, Brandt surveyed Noelle with such open appreciation that she was amused. Wolf Brandt was obviously an accomplished flirt.

"Mrs. Copeland, you are even more enchanting than I have remembered."

"So we have met before. I thought as much."

"But of course. And you don't remember." He flicked his palms open and closed in an elegantly despondent gesture. "You see, Quinn, how sad life can be. Unlike you, I am one of those unfortunate men whom beautiful women quickly forget."

Quinn gave a snort of amusement, and Noelle smiled. "Somehow I doubt that."

"I will jar your memory. We were introduced at an unpleasantly overcrowded ball in London. The Atterburys', I believe."

"Of course," Noelle lied. "How could I have forgotten, Mr. Brandt."

"You will call me Wolf. It is short for Wolfgang, you know. Hideous name! Only my sister is permitted to call me that. Come, let us go into the drawing room. She is waiting for us."

Noelle's attention was caught by a pair of exceptionally fine Sèvres vases sitting on a table, and so she did not see Quinn's thunderstruck expression or the apologetic shrug Wolf Brandt gave him. She did, however, notice that just before her host reached out his well-manicured hand to open the drawing-room door, he swept her with a faintly pitying gaze.

Like a beautiful, deadly spider, the Baroness Anna von Furst sat in the exact center of a white satin sofa. She was a study in black and white. The black crepe gown that molded to her body was dramatically slashed to reveal one alabaster shoulder and the luscious top of a single white breast. Her hair was pulled back from her face in shining raven's wings, her eyes and lashes so sooty, they looked as if they would leave stains on her white skin. She wore no jewelry, no feather or flower. Only her lips, red as fresh blood, moist and predatory, gave color to her ensemble.

"And so, Wolfgang, you finally bring our guests to me. I have been waiting."

In the face of Quinn's betrayal, Noelle could not move. Just as she had discovered her love for him and deluded herself into believing that things could be different between them, he had brought his mistress to Cape Crosse to flaunt before her!

She was dimly conscious that he was walking toward Anna, but since his back was toward her, she couldn't see the angry white line that traced the edge of his lips as he took her hand, nor did she hear the frost in his greeting.

With a gentle yet insistent pressure on her arm, Wolf Brandt propelled her into the room. The baroness's eyes flicked over Noelle lazily, and then in a manner neither hostile nor friendly, she said, "What a pretty child you are. I had forgotten."

At the subtle barb, anger flooded through Noelle, blurring the edges of her pain. "But I have not forgotten you. Baroness," she said. "You don't look as well as you did in London. I can see that the loss of your husband has weighed heavily on you."

Noelle caught the slight crinkling at the corner of Quinn's eyes, and it fueled her fury. So he found it amusing to see two women sparring over him! How amused would he be when he saw she didn't care?

The butler appeared at the door to announce dinner, and Anna rose quickly and slipped her arm through Quinn's. With a brilliant smile, Noelle turned to Brandt.

"Wolf, you must tell me how you like Cape Crosse. Do you find it frightfully dull after London?"

His gray eyes raked her appreciatively. "No longer, my dear Mrs. Copeland. No longer."

Unlike Quinn, Wolf Brandt was a man who was content with himself. He was wealthy, handsome, and had no hidden devils tormenting him. He observed the world through a slightly jaundiced, but never bitter, eye, amused at the follies of others, but somewhat detached from them. Men sometimes confused Brandt's fastidious ways with effeminacy, but they were wrong. He was a man who liked beautiful things and liked them in their proper places, but he was also an accomplished lover who derived as much pleasure from bringing a woman to fulfillment as he did from his own release.

It never occurred to women to doubt his masculinity. They knew that he was that priceless rarity, a virile male who genuinely loved women and, more important, who understood them. Brandt recognized what escaped so many other men, that a woman's emotions were her strength, not her weakness, and it never occurred to him to try to reason away her feelings. It no longer surprised him, however, when he saw other men make this mistake, for he had long ago accepted the fact that most men did not understand women as he did.

As the beautiful Mrs. Copeland held out her wineglass to him to be filled for a third time, he knew that Copeland certainly did not understand his wife; nor, it occurred to him, did she understand her husband. He steadied her trembling hand with his own as he poured her wine, not missing the dark scowl that came over her husband's face. The situation intrigued him. There was a magnetism between them that was so palpable, the air was heavy with it, yet they were letting his sister's scheme drive them apart.

Quinn Copeland was foolish, Brandt decided. All he needed to do was take his beautiful wife in his arms and tell her that Anna no longer meant anything to him. But this he would not do. He was a proud man who would see his own life crumble around him before he would bend that pride. And the exciting, tawny-haired woman who had been flirting so outrageously with him ever since dinner had started was much the same. It was a volatile combination of personalities running out of control, and if one of them did not bend, the collision could be tragic.

Brandt twisted the stem of his glass in his fingers, considering his own place in all of this. If Copeland decided to treasure this delicious creature as he should, he vowed he would leave them alone despite the fact that she intrigued him more than any woman had in years. But if the shipbuilder were foolish enough to continue making her unhappy-well, then he, Brandt, would be waiting close by.

As Anna whispered a laughing comment to Quinn, Noelle leaned forward and offered a tantalizing glimpse of her breasts to her handsome dinner companion. She was rewarded by the sight of her husband's face tightening in anger.

"This wine is excellent, Wolf." She smiled provocatively over the silver rim of her glass. "Did you bring it with you?"

"But of course. I always travel with my own stock. This particular vintage is from my vineyard near Rheims."

"I had no idea your business interests were so diversified."

"The vineyard is my pleasure, not my business. A man should never confuse the two."

Speaking easily and requiring nothing from her in the way of response, he described the beauty of the land and the small château that graced the property. She gazed at him intently, nodding her head in the proper places but concentrating only on the hushed conversation and intimate laughter coming from the other side of the table.

Wolf was saddened by the triumph that flushed his sister's lovely face as Quinn slipped his arm across the back of her chair. His darling, magnificent Anna with her raven hair and alabaster skin. Wise about everything except this one man. Victory was not going to be as easy as she thought. The shipbuilder loved his wife even if he would not admit it to himself. Still, that was undoubtedly a point in Anna's favor. This complex man would not succumb to love easily.

"Ladies, perhaps you will excuse Quinn and myself. We have a small bit of business to discuss, then we will join you in the drawing room."

There was only the briefest hesitation before the beautiful Mrs. Copeland rose gracefully from the table and glided from the room, leaving his sister in her wake. Wolf smiled to himself, wishing he could be an observer of what was to come. It would be most interesting to see how they would deal with each other.

In the drawing room, Anna wandered over to the corner table, where she picked up a piece of jagged white coral and idly turned it over in her hands. "You're really quite charming, you know," she said.

"I beg your pardon."

"I have been studying you. You're lovely. But, of course, Quinn has always been surrounded by beautiful women." Anna's scarlet lips curved in a sly smile. "Now he is quite angry with me for having shown myself openly to you despite his orders. But he knows I'm not a woman to be kept locked in the attic." With a touch as light as the thread of a spider's web, she placed her fingertips on Noelle's arm. "In the end, it will be easier for both of us because we will not have to pretend."

Noelle could feel her heart breaking, but she clung to her dignity. "You will do well to stay out of my way, Baroness. I do not have the advantage of generations of impeccable breeding, and my inferior blood sometimes makes me behave rashly. Now, if you will excuse me, I feel the need for some fresh air." With her head held high, she swept from the room.

Anna drew a deep breath. For an instant, she looked older than her thirty-two years, but at the sound of footsteps approaching the door, she sank down on the sofa and languidly draped one hand over the arm.

"Where is my wife?"

She smiled lazily. "Where is Wolfgang?"

"Don't assume everyone has your talent for intrigue, Anna."

"What an ugly scowl, liebchen. You must stop it at once, or you will frighten me."

The grim line of Quinn's mouth relaxed. He was fond of Anna, and despite her teasing manner, he knew she was suffering. "This time Wolf is innocent. I just left him alone in the dining room, looking over some papers he has to sign."

"Too bad." Anna pouted. "It would have made things so much easier." She stood and walked toward him, arching an amused ebony brow. "Who knows? It may still all work out."

The line of his mouth was firm, but not unkind. "Don't do this to yourself, Anna. Everything is over between us. We agreed to that in London."

She pressed herself to him, the hardness of his body against hers making her voice husky with desire. "I never agreed to anything, liebchen. I have not yet tired of you."

Gently he skimmed the raven softness of her hair with his hand. "I have enough complications in my life without adding another. Accept the fact that we can never be together again."

"Never?" she murmured, tracing her fingers upward along the lapels of his jacket and then sliding them along his neck into the black hair that curled over the back of his collar. "Perhaps you are being too hasty." She pulled his head toward her parted lips and brought his mouth hard against hers.

The kiss was pleasant, and Quinn responded to it, but too soon he realized that Anna's ripe body was not stirring him as it once had. With something akin to anger, he caught her in a closer embrace and drove his tongue into the moist cavern of her mouth.

Noelle watched from the open doorway, wanting to tear herself away but unable to move. She grabbed the door frame for support.

"My beautiful swan, you do not need to see this." Coming up from behind her. Wolf Brandt slid an arm around her and drew her toward him.

Quinn brought up his head just in time to see his wife disappear in Brandt's arms. Furiously he disengaged himself from Anna and stalked toward the door.

"Bitte, Quinn. Please wait." The languid air was gone as Anna ran after him and clutched at his arm. "Where are you going?"

"Where do you think?"

"You are not a man to grovel before a woman," she exclaimed. "What will you do? Tell her you did not enjoy kissing me? She will know that's a lie!"

"Damn it, Anna, shut up!" He began to pull away from her, but she threw her body in front of him.

"Leave her to my brother, Quinn. You saw at dinner how he fascinated her. It is like that sometimes. A thunderbolt! A woman cannot always help it when her heart strays. Don't make a fool of yourself!"

Refusing to listen to any more, he pushed her aside and darted from the room only to find the hallway empty. By the time he thought to look outside, it was too late; a carriage was already pulling away from the house.

Brandt quietly stepped from the deep shadows of the porch. "I had my driver take her home."

"You had no right."

"And you, my old friend, had no right to humiliate her as you did. Do you not even care how she feels?"

"This is none of your business, Brandt," Quinn snarled.

"There you are wrong. We have known each other for a long time, and, while we have never been intimates, we have always respected each other. Is that not true?"

"You have one minute. Get to the point."

"Proud and impatient." Brandt smiled. "Excellent qualities in a businessman, but not so good in a husband, yes?"

"Like I said before. This is none of your business."

"But I must have my say, because I am now involved."

"How do you figure that?"

"Ach! You Americans! It is obvious, is it not? I find myself attracted to your wife. She is the most desirable woman I have met in a long time, and she deserves to be cherished." The amusement faded from his gray eyes. "I give you fair warning, Copeland. Mend your ways or I shall do my best to take her from you."

Quinn's voice was flat and unemotional. "I'll kill you if you try."

"Any other man, yes. But not me, I think, because I have warned you. You are a fair man, and you'll know that you have only yourself to blame if you lose her."

"Your time's up, Brandt."

Without another word, Quinn strode to his carriage, rousing the napping coachman with a none too gentle kick before he pushed him to the side and grabbed the reins himself. Gravel sprayed from the wheels as the carriage tore off down the drive.

Quinn was halfway to Televea before he changed his mind and turned the horses toward Kate Malloy's, where he got quietly and thoroughly drunk. When he got home, he found his own bed empty and the door that connected their rooms firmly locked against him.

Grimly he pulled back his foot, ready to break it down, but then he stopped himself. What was the use? She had seen him kissing Anna, and he was damned if he owed her any explanations. She wasn't going to lead him around on a leash like a trained dog! It was time she understood that he didn't need her. God damn it, he didn't need anyone!

Chapter Thirty-six

Wolf Brandt and Anna von Furst were quickly accepted by Cape Crosse society. The women of the community were delighted to have a baroness in their midst, even one as aloof as Anna, but they barely knew what to make of her handsome brother, who kissed their hands so elegantly and smiled at them in a way that sent blood rushing to their cheeks.

Even Emily Lester was not unaffected. One November afternoon, she laughingly confided to Noelle, "You know how I love Julian, but I declare, that Mr. Brandt gives me naughty thoughts. The same ones, as a matter of fact, that I had about Quinn when I was sixteen!"

Noelle laughed with her but then quickly changed the subject, for she didn't want to discuss either her husband or Wolf Brandt with Emily. Since the disastrous evening with Brandt and Anna, she and Quinn had barely seen each other. At the few social functions they could not avoid attending, the strain between them was almost intolerable. Riding in a closed carriage at his side, walking into a room on his arm, sitting across the dinner table from him, all of these were difficult enough, but even worse were those moments when something happened to amuse them both, and they would catch each other's eyes in an instant of total communication only to remember what was between them and quickly turn away.

Noelle decided that she could no longer remain in Cape Crosse, but having made her decision, she did no more.

November turned into December. It seemed that wherever they went, they met Wolf and Anna. Noelle was forced to admit that there was no way she could fault Anna's behavior in public. She treated Noelle politely and was as formal with Quinn as she was with the other men in the community. No one suspected that they were more than acquaintances. As for Wolf Brandt, Noelle was growing to depend on him more each day.

They came across each other so frequently when she was riding Chestnut Lady that they no longer bothered pretending the meetings were accidental. She felt easy with him. He made no demands on her, never pressed her for more than she was willing to give, never touched her except to take her hand when they met. When she was with him, she felt the sadness lift from her and, along with it, the sense of lethargy that seemed to have claimed her. Something of it must have shown in her face, because when they would meet at the shipyard, she could feel Quinn's eyes boring into her, watching the two of them, the warning clear in his cold, probing gaze. More than anything, Noelle wanted to fall in love with Brandt. Then, she knew, Quinn would have finally lost his hold on her.

It didn't happen. Instead, she came to the painful realization that her love for Quinn had more than one easy dimension. She loved the body of him, the taste and feel and sex of him. But those were all transient and, given time and distance, would surely fade. It was the deeper facet of her love for him that she knew would not be given up so easily, for she had come to love the man he could be if he were only free of the bitterness that shackled him, the bitterness that turned honest laughter into mockery, pride into arrogance, and anger into contempt.

January came and with it, Wheeler and Thea Talbot's ball. As Noelle left the bedroom where the women were straightening their gowns and touching up their hair, she heard a soft giggle. Peering around the comer to investigate, she saw a small towhead pressed against the far edge of the railing that circled the stairwell. It was a good hiding place. The corner was dark, and there was a skirted table that concealed her from the view of the well-dressed guests who passed in the hallway below. She spun around as she heard the rustling gown behind her.

"You needn't look so guilty," Noelle whispered. "I won't tell on you."

Eight-year-old Elizabeth Talbot regarded her shyly. "I just couldn't go to bed until I'd seen everybody."

"No, of course you couldn't," Noelle solemnly agreed.

"You look like a princess, Mrs. Copeland."

"Thank you." She smiled, noting with some amusement that "princess" was not the easiest word to manage for a little girl who had two front teeth missing.

"I never saw a dress with feathers on it. They look like they're tickling your chest."

"They are, Elizabeth," Noelle said, laughing, for the fine snowy plumes were indeed pleasantly tickling her shoulders and the swelling tops of her breasts. She pulled up a small wooden stool and sat chatting quietly and looking out over the hallway below with the child.

"There's Mr. Copeland!" Elizabeth exclaimed as the butler admitted Quinn.

The excitement in her voice told Noelle that the little girl had a childish crush on her husband. It seemed that youth offered no immunity to his fascination.

"Why didn't he come with you?"

"H-he had to work late, so I traveled with Mr. and Mrs. Darcy."

"I think Mr. Copeland is the handsomest man in Cape Crosse. Do you think he is?"

"Well, I-yes, I suppose he is."

They sat silently and watched the brightly colored pattern of people pass beneath them, their thoughts traveling in remarkably similar directions. As the orchestra began to play Elizabeth's small, bare feet tapped out the rhythm on the carpet. Finally, unable to resist the music, she stood and spun around, her nightdress billowing out to reveal thin, pale calves.

"When I grow up, I want to marry someone just like Mr. Copeland and go to a ball and wear a white dress with pretty white feathers on it and have silver slippers on my feet and dance and drink champagne and-"

"What's this? I thought all of the beautiful women were downstairs."

Mortified, Elizabeth stopped where she was. Blushing to the roots of her pale hair, she dropped Quinn an awkward curtsy.

Quickly Noelle came to the child's rescue. "Doesn't Elizabeth move gracefully? It's a shame children aren't permitted in the ballroom."

"Perhaps we'll just have to move the ballroom up here. May I have the pleasure of this dance?"

Elizabeth's eyes flew to Noelle. She smiled her encouragement.

Quinn bowed solemnly and then took Elizabeth in his arms. She was such a tiny child and he so large that Noelle should have been amused, but she wasn't. Instead, she felt tears gathering behind her lids at the courtesy and gentleness with which he led the young girl in the long white nightgown through the steps of the dance. If only this side of him didn't exist. If only she could go back to the days when she had simply hated him. Loving him was so much more painful.

After Quinn had gone back downstairs, Noelle found she was reluctant to leave her quiet refuge with Elizabeth. She was still there when Wolf and Anna arrived. The butler removed the crimson velvet cape that covered Anna's matching gown. Noelle watched as the baroness's jet eyes scanned the gathering until they alighted on Quinn, standing just inside the arched entryway to the ballroom. She turned to greet the Talbots, and then began to make her way casually through the crowd, occasionally stopping to greet an acquaintance or admire a gown. Only Noelle could see that she was forging a determined path toward Quinn.

Wolf, too, was searching the crowd. Noelle bid an affectionate good-bye to Elizabeth and made her way down the stairs. He was waiting for her at the bottom.

"Tonight you look more than ever like my beautiful swan."

He swept her into the ballroom and out onto the polished floor. She saw Quinn drain the contents of the glass he held and then pull Anna into his arms.

"My friend Quinn is not happy to see his wife so much in my company."

"I don't care!"

"Ach! Don't lie to me, my sweet. You care very much. Unfortunately so do I."

When the dance was over, Wolf fetched her a glass of champagne. She had barely tasted it before Julian claimed her, and from that point on, the evening whirled around her in flashes of light and color. The atmosphere in the ballroom grew heavy with the hot pack of bodies, but she would not let herself stop moving. She laughed and danced with every man she knew except her husband. Wolf led her out for a waltz and held her much closer than he should, but she was past caring, because Quinn was once again dancing with Anna.

Midnight came, and he still had not approached her. Her anger grew at his rudeness. If they did not dance together at least once, everyone in Cape Crosse would know by morning that something was wrong between them.

He finally came to her just as Wolf was ready to escort her, for the third time, onto the floor.

"I'll dance with my wife now, Brandt."

"But of course, my friend."

It was the most miserable dance of Noelle's life. He held her as far from him as he could and did not say a word. When it was over, she fled from his side and ran up the stairs and down the hallway, dashing blindly into an empty bedroom.

She stood in the dark for some time, trying to steady herself. Somehow she was not surprised when Wolf entered the room and silently walked over to her.

"My poor darling. You are having a bad time of it, and I am afraid I am only going to make it worse." Gently he tilted up her chin and kissed her.

Although his kiss ignited no fires within her, it felt good to be in his arms, and so she made no protest when his lips traveled down the column of her neck, nor when his hand found her breast. What a far way I have come, she thought, from the young girl who was sickened by the mere thought of a man's touch to the woman standing here passively allowing someone I care for, but don't love, to caress me.

She sensed him in the room an instant before he jerked Wolf away from her. There was the sound of fist smashing into bone, and then Wolf lay still. Noelle let out a cry of rage mixed with fear and tried to run to him, but Quinn caught her by the arm.

"Enough! Your whoring is done for tonight!"

Driven by the image of Brandt's hand on her breast, he pulled her from the room and dragged her down the back steps of the house. The carriages were clustered around the stable while the drivers, trading tales and spitting tobacco, huddled together against the windy night. As soon as she noticed the men, Noelle stopped struggling and forced herself to walk quietly at Quinn's side. Her attempt at dignity crumbled, however, when she saw that Quinn had not traveled to the Talbot home in a carriage, but had ridden Pathkiller.

Whipping an arm around her waist, he mounted the stallion, pulling Noelle up with him. Before the startled eyes of the coachmen, he spun the animal out and carried his wife off as if she were plunder captured in an outlaw raid. They tore into the night, the chill wind loosening her hair and cutting through the thin white silk of her gown. When they reached Televea, Quinn rode directly to the darkened stables and dismounted, drawing her down with him.

"Let me go!" she cried, struggling against the arm that was still clamped like a band of steel around her waist.

"Not just yet!"

With a mighty thrust, he pushed her inside the stable, sending her sprawling down into a pile of straw. He banged the door shut and lit a lantern that hung on a hook. It swung about, sending crazy shadows writhing across the walls and bringing back to Noelle the memory of the nightmare encounter in the forest clearing when he had unmasked her.

She crouched in the straw, trying to force her mind to think clearly while Quinn put Pathkiller in a stall. If she tried to run away, he would catch her, and it would only go harder. Somehow she must reason with him; she must reach the part of him that was just and compassionate.

Her brave hopes were shattered, and horror took their place when she lifted her eyes and saw him standing in the shadows across the stable from her. His immaculate evening dress was barely rumpled by the breakneck ride; the white ruffles on the front of his shirt looked as fresh as they had when he'd entered the Talbots' front door. Only the savage rage that now contorted his features was different. That, and the ugly black whip that dangled in a loose coil from his corded hands…

She froze, her terrified eyes glued to the monstrous weapon. At first he was as still as she, and then he took a step toward her.

"My God, Quinn!" she cried, her fear making the words ragged distortions of sound. "Have you lost your mind?" When he made no answer, she scrambled desperately to her feet.

He advanced on her with deadly purpose. She began to back away, and then, horrified, she watched him uncoil the lash until he held only the stout leather butt clenched in his fist.

"I'm within my rights as your husband."

A scream tore from her throat.

"If you don't want the servants to witness this, I suggest you keep your screams to yourself. Or maybe I'll gag you."

"You can't do this," she sobbed, unable to pull her eyes away from the monstrous lash snaking across the floor at his feet as he moved closer to her. "Nothing happened tonight. Nothing ever happened. I swear it. I love you, Quinn!" The admission was torn from her with all the agony of a stillbirth. "I love you!"

With a howl of rage, he lifted his arm and snapped his wrist.

He had never intended to hit her. It was merely by accident that he even held the whip in his hand, for in his preoccupation with his own despair, he had absentmindedly picked it up from the floor of the stall where one of the stable boys had carelessly tossed it. But when he had seen the fear in her eyes and realized that she actually believed him capable of using the vile weapon on her, he had been powerless to toss it aside. And now in his rage at hearing her swear her love for him when he knew she was only lying to save herself, he struck out.

The cruel tip of the lash sliced through the silk of her gown, splitting the side from the hip down and exposing one slim leg. It did not touch her flesh, but that made no difference to him. Filled with self-loathing, he flung the hateful weapon across the stable.

With a strangled scream, Noelle threw herself after it. "I'll kill you for this!"

The butt was warm from his hand when she caught it up. She jerked her arm back and swung it through the air. The lash caught the corner of his jaw, leaving a thin trail of blood behind. Before she could draw it back again, he snared it in his fist and yanked it from her hand. Lost to reason, she flew at him, going for his eyes with her nails, barely noticing when he restrained her hands.

"You hypocrite!" she screamed. "I was never unfaithful! Not like you! How many women have there been since we were married? Spreading their legs so you could rut between them!"

"That's enough!" he roared. "You even talk like a whore!" Grabbing her by the shoulders, he flung her back into the straw. "Now you'll play the whore for me!"

With a cry that was filled as much with despair as it was with rage, he yanked up her skirt and fell on her. His fingers left a scratch across the soft skin of her belly as he ripped off her dainty undergarments. He raped her violently.

When it was over, she turned on her side in the straw, not even bothering to push down her skirt and cover herself. It was he who wrapped her in his coat and carried her to her bedroom. He who gently bathed the inside of her thighs. At the same time he cleansed her, he engraved a picture in his mind that he knew he would carry to his grave.

When he saw that she was finally asleep, he sat down at her small desk. For some time the only sound in the room was the scratch of a pen moving across paper. When he was done, he read what he had written.

My dear Noelle,

I said we were poisoning each other and tonight has proved the ugly truth of those words. What has happened has convinced me that we can't remain together any longer. I will arrange for your passage back to England and see that you're provided for.

I'm not asking your forgiveness, because I know you won't be able to give it. The only way I can begin to make amends is to give you the freedom you've always wanted, and so I will contact my attorney about a divorce. Now that we're in America, it should not be difficult. You'll soon be free to marry Brandt if you wish. He's a good man and will take better care of you than I have.

I received a message from Wasidan today and must go to Washington. I won't see you again.

Quinn

He folded the letter in half and leaned it on the mantelpiece. Then he kissed her closed lids in farewell and left the room.