In a very short time, Travis appeared at the door of the women’s cabin with carpentry tools in a box. Some of the women squealed in protest because they were in various states of undress, but it didn’t take Travis long to make them feel comfortable. He laughed with the women and told them the men were all dying for them to come on deck and make the voyage less tedious. In spite of what he’d said to Regan, he held one woman’s head over a bowl and tenderly wiped her mouth. He diapered two babies and rearranged several heavy trunks so there was more walking room, all while he repaired the broken bunks, checked the others, and reinforced several more.
When he left, most of the women were smiling, and it felt as if fresh air had just blown through the stuffy, stinking dormitory.
“Oh my,” sighed one woman whose baby Travis had changed. “Who was that glorious man?”
“He’s mine!” Regan said, so loudly and with such a challenge in her voice that the women laughed, making Regan blush.
“You don’t have to be embarrassed, honey. Just thank the Lord every night for being so good to you.”
“Maybe she has other things on her mind at night,” someone else said loudly.
Regan was almost grateful when one of the women began to groan and she could run away and escape the women’s teasing. But even as she held a pan for the woman, she began to feel angry. He was flirting with all the women, right in front of her! No doubt he liked having all the women drool over him, liked being the only man allowed into the single women’s cabins. Allowed! Surely Travis Stanford never did anything so common as ask permission for anything he wanted to do.
Slamming down a pitcher of water, Regan seemed to grow angrier by the moment. Of course, he had no reason to treat her as a lady since all he knew of her was in bed. The big, crude American had no idea how to treat a woman except as something for his own use. To him all women were the same—whether they were sick in bed or dressed in a gown of satin, he seemed to think they were all made for his pleasure.
Near sunset, she went on deck to wash the earthenware basins. There, surrounded by children, were Travis and two sailors showing the boys and girls how to tie knots. One girl, about twelve, seemed to be knotting a piece of fabric while a two-year-old sat on Travis’s lap, absorbed in the intricacies of the puzzle of rope Travis was creating. He smiled and waved at Regan before returning to the children.
Haughtily, she put her nose in the air and returned below to the stifling cabin, gritting her teeth against the fact that even the children found him irresistible. She’d told the women he was hers, but she was fully aware that she had no power over him, that she was his captive plaything, and that when they reached America he would dispose of her quickly and no doubt pick up another woman—one not so used. With suspicious eyes, she began to look at each one of the women in the big cabin, wondering if one of them would be her successor.
By the time she was ready to leave the dormitory, she was very angry. Her uncle had said she was mealy-mouthed, an embarrassment to him, but many things had happened to her in the last few weeks, and she was changing.
The cabin she shared with Travis was empty when she reached it, but as she stood watching the stars through the big window, the door opened.
A pewter mug sailing directly toward Travis’s head made him duck quickly. “What the—?” he began.
Regan grabbed another mug from a wall cabinet. “You enjoyed flirting, didn’t you?” she accused. “You liked having all the women fawn over you. ‘Oh what a darling man,’ they all drooled.” The second mug grazed his shoulder.
As she grabbed the third one, Travis crossed the room and held her hand. Again, that half-amused little smile was on his face. “Don’t let your temper get the best of you. Please try to remember that you were once an English lady.”
His patronizing tone, added to the fact that he was the one who’d made her fall from being a lady, sent blind rage coursing through her veins. “I am sick of you!” she gasped as she slammed her elbows back into his ribs.
She got some satisfaction from his grunt, but before he could recover she kicked him in the shins.
As he backed away from her, rubbing his shins, his expression was one of bewilderment. “Wouldn’t you like to talk about this? What’s got you so riled?”
“Riled?” she mocked in her crisp accent. “I am angry because of the way you assume that you have the first right of everything in the world. Did you enjoy the way the women looked at you with great adoring
eyes? It was disgusting that you used the babies to get to the women. Are you planning to kidnap one of them when you’re through with me?”
“I might,” Travis said, his jaw set, a tiny spark of fire in his eyes. “At least one of them might be more grateful for what you have. Why don’t you ask who’d like to trade places with you?”
“You are the most vain, arrogant animal ever created!” she seethed. “Did it ever occur to you that I might not want to be held prisoner or that other women might not either? Am I supposed to be grateful that you hold me against my will, drag me onto a ship that’s sailing for a country I despise, and threaten to tell everyone our true relationship if I do not remain with you?”
“I told you why I couldn’t release you in England.” His voice was quite low. “I’ve shown you every kindness, given you every stitch on your back, yet you’re still too much of a romantic to see the truth. Can’t you remember what it was like on the docks when those men came after you?”
It was too much like the things her uncle had said. Someone was always taking care of her, always throwing it into her face. “I’m not grateful,” she said quietly. “And I do not want anything more from you. You needn’t worry that I’ll be attacked on board ship, so I’ll leave you now and begin my stay with the single women.” Looking down at the simple muslin dress that Sarah had just finished for her last night, she said, “When I get to America I will try to earn enough money to repay you for this dress. Perhaps you can sell the others.”
Turning, her chin up, back straight, she started for the door.
It took Travis a moment to realize that she meant to leave him, and she was just stubborn enough to do it. Without thinking what he was doing, he grabbed the back of her dress. With Regan going one way and Travis pulling the other, the thin muslin quickly split from top to bottom, landing in a small heap at Regan’s feet.
Instantly, his look changed from anger to desire, his eyes raking her hungrily, feasting on her heaving breasts well exposed above the low-cut chemise.
“No,” she whispered, trying with all her might to pull away from his mesmerizing gaze.
His arm, strong and powerful, went around her waist, pulling her to him, bending her backward into an arc.
Weakly, she fought against him, wanting so much to defy him, to prove to him that she was her own person, but his touch, his lips on hers, drove her senseless.