Sweet Savage Eden by Graham Heather

Author:Graham, Heather [Graham, Heather]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Historical Romance
ISBN: 9780440202356
Publisher: Dell
Published: 1989-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

XII

The wind rushed over her face, the horse pounded its mighty legs beneath her, and Jassy could hear cheers all around her. But most of all she was aware of Jamie behind her—the hard, vibrant wall of his chest; the entrapment of his arms, warm and unyielding as they came around her to hold the reins. She felt absurdly giddy, as if she might pass out at any moment. She felt a rush of warmth within her, because he touched her. She didn’t want this … this gruesome place, and she didn’t want to sail again, not when infants died and were cast, tiny and pitiless, into the sea. Not when even sailors sickened and died, and weevils chewed into the food. Not when storms raged and buffeted a vessel until not even the screams of the passengers could challenge the moaning of the wind.

From the moment they had boarded the Sweet Eden, things had gone badly. A scream had brought Jassy down to the hold where she discovered Joan Tannen, the wife of one of Jamie’s men, in the midst of a cruel labor. A day later, Joan had borne a dead, blue-faced baby, swearing her loyalty to her husband and Jamie even then.

The wind howled; the rain slashed. Jassy divided her time among the sick children and Joan, trying not to leave her side for long. It did no good.

Two weeks after the baby had been cast into the sea, Joan had followed. She had bled to death, begging Jassy to give her husband the very last of her love.

She didn’t want to be a part of this place.…

There was nothing here, just the log palisade and the looming cannons that warned of further death, and the little houses made of wood and wattle and daub. Beyond that, beyond the fields, there seemed to be nothing but the endless forests. By night it would black, as dark as any true pit of hell.

She didn’t want to be with child. She didn’t want to bear a child, not here in the wilderness.

But even as she longed to escape the voyage and the land, she again felt her husband’s touch, the sweet dizziness; the rush of warmth encompassed her, and she lowered her head, feeling her body grow warm, for she was stunned to realize how she had missed him, how she had wanted to feel him beside her again.…

And how she had longed for the expertise of his intimate touch. Even if that touch had cast her into her present, frightening predicament, she longed for it. She had even lain awake at night aboard the wretched ship and thought that perhaps, had he been there, had she been able to turn to him and cry out her loss and her fear and her anguish, it might have been better. If he had been there to hold her and soothe her, to take her into his arms.

He had never taken her into his arms, not to be tender, or to gently soothe her, she reminded herself.

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