“Stop—!” she sputtered. “Is there no part of my life you don’t attempt to control?” She calmed herself. “I am a free woman, and when I get to America I plan to take advantage of my freedom. I’m sure David is the type of man who’d want to get married and not try to make a…a slave of a woman.”
Calmly, Travis put his hand on her shoulder. “Would you really like to trade me for a boy and a gold ring?”
As he bent to kiss her, she pulled away. “Perhaps I’d like to try,” she whispered. “Surely men can’t be so different. If David loved me, perhaps we could be compatible in the marriage bed.”
Travis’s hands on her shoulders were brutal. “If that boy ever touches you, I’ll break every bone in his body—and I’ll make you watch while I do it.” He gave her a sharp push before he slammed out of the cabin.
That night Regan spent alone. She refused to admit to herself how much she missed him, how alone she felt without his arms around her. All night she tossed and turned, trying not to cry, attempting not to be afraid.
In the morning there were circles under her eyes, and Sarah, for once, didn’t ask questions. The two women sat quietly in the cabin and sewed. Near sunset, David knocked on the door and asked if Regan would walk with him.
On deck, all she seemed to see was Travis, yet Travis never looked at her.
His ignoring of her made her angry, and as a result she turned all her attentions to David, who was complaining about the length of the voyage and the food. At her look, suddenly turned from disinterest to adoration, he stopped speaking and looked at her.
“You are especially lovely today,” he whispered. “The sunlight makes your hair a red-gold.”
Just then Travis was passing them, a massive piece of canvas thrown across his shoulder.
“Oh thank you, David,” she said, much too loudly. “You make a woman feel like a queen with your fine compliments. I don’t know when I’ve been so flattered.”
If he heard, Travis made no sign as he continued past her, his movements not even slowed.
Again that night she was alone in the cabin. She wanted so much to show Travis that it didn’t matter to her that he had abandoned her. She wanted to prove to him that she could do something on her own. So, as the days progressed, she flirted more and more openly with David, always when Travis was near.
On the evening of the third night, as David escorted her to her cabin, instead of his friendly goodnight he grabbed her, fiercely pulling her into his arms. “Regan,” he whispered, his lips on her ear. “You must know that I love you. I’ve loved you from the first, yet every night I must lie alone in my cabin while that…that animal has the right to touch you. Regan, my dearest, tell me that you feel the same way about me.”
With surprise, she found that his kisses and his arms around her repulsed her. Pushing against him, she tried to free herself. “I’m a married woman,” she gasped.
“Married to a man who isn’t worthy to kiss the hem of your gown. We’ll keep quiet about our love until we dock, and then we’ll have your marriage dissolved. You can’t think to spend all your life with that poverty-eaten sailor. Come with me, and I will build you a house like that backward country has never seen before.”
“David!” she said, pushing in earnest. “Release me this moment!”
“No, my love. If you don’t have the courage to leave him, I will tell him myself.”
“No! Please, no!” Suddenly she knew that Travis had been right. She didn’t want David, and in the last few days she’d been using him to make Travis jealous.
David’s fingers turned her face to hi
m, and he planted hot, damp kisses on her face, suffocating kisses, as she twisted her body in an attempt to get away from him.
One moment David was holding her, and the next he seemed to be flying through the air. In astonished disbelief, she watched as Travis’s fist smashed into David’s face, just before the small man slammed against the wall. As he slid unconscious to the floor, Travis raised his fist again.
With one leap, Regan grabbed Travis’s arm, holding on to it, her feet above the ground. “No!” she shouted. “You’ll kill him.”
The face Travis turned to her was a distortion of his usual countenance. His eyes were hot, black with fury, his mouth grim with his anger. In fear she stepped back from him.
“Did you get what you wanted?” he growled, his heavy brows coming together in a black scowl. Without another word, he turned and left the passageway to return to the deck.
Shaking, Regan looked at David as he was beginning to rouse, blood gushing from his nose. Her first impulse was to help him, but when she saw that he was trying to stand and knew he was all right, she fled to her own cabin. Once inside, she leaned against the door, her heart pounding and tears beginning to roll down her cheeks. Travis had been right! She had used David, toyed with his affections, almost promised what she never meant to give, all in an attempt to make Travis jealous. But Travis could not be made jealous—she was merely a possession to him.
Flinging herself onto the bed, she began to cry in earnest, deeply and sincerely.
Hours later, her head feeling stuffed, her eyes raw, having cried herself to sleep, she was awakened by the violent tossing of the ship. As she lay quietly, trying to understand what was going on, a sudden lurch sent her sprawling out of the bunk and onto the hard floor, where she lay stunned. The cabin door opened, flung back against the wall as the ship plummeted in another direction.
Travis stood in the doorway, wearing a heavy oilcloth slicker, his hair wild and wet. His legs spread as he walked toward her, rolling with the tumbling of the ship. He picked her up in his arms.
“Are you hurt?” he shouted, and until then she hadn’t been aware of the tremendous noise about them.