“You’re a fool if you tell your wife this,” snorted another man. “We ought to make a pact to keep it secret, or every woman in the country will expect the same kind of courting, and I for one am not walking any tightrope for any damn woman in the world. I’m telling my wife I spent these three days with another woman; it’ll cause me less grief.” With that he turned toward the male dormitory.
Eventually the people decided to go back to bed, jumping once as Farrell slammed what was left of his door in their faces.
For several minutes Farrell’s cursing of America, Americans, and women in general did not stop. The two of them had ignored him, giving each other lovesick lies as if he weren’t even in the same room. As he began to think of all the money he’d spent searching for Regan, courting her, he grew more and more amgry. Yet she fell for an animal that kicked down doors, a bumbling idiot who was considered a fool by everyone who met him. The woman was insane!
And she belonged to him, to Farrell Batsford. He’d been through hell to get her money, and he wasn’t going to give it up now.
Quickly, he tossed a dressing gown on and went to find Margo. He knew she wasn’t a woman to take this public humiliation easily; perhaps they could work out something.
“Mmm, Travis,” Regan murmured, running her leg up Travis’s. The early-morning sun made her skin golden.
“Don’t start on me again,” he said. “You nearly wore me out last night.”
“You certainly don’t feel as if all of you is exhausted,” she laughed, kissing his neck, wiggling against him.
“Unless you want to put on a show for your daughter, you’d better behave. Good morning, sweetheart,” he called.
Regan turned away just in time to see her daughter, who took a flying leap at them and landed on Travis’s stomach.
“You’re home, Daddy!” she yelled. “Can I ride my pony today? Can we go to the circus again? Will you teach me to walk on a rope?”
“Instead of a circus, how about going home with me? I don’t own an elephant, but I have lots of other animals and a little brother.”
“Does Wesley know you talk about him like this?” Regan asked, but Travis ignored her.
“When can we go?” Jennifer asked her mother.
“Two days?” she asked, looking at Travis. “I have a lot to do before then.”
“Now, sweet,” Travis said. “Go to the kitchen and get some breakfast. We’ll be along in a while. I want to talk to your mother.”
“Talk?” Regan said when they were alone, rubbing against him. “I certainly like our ‘conversations.’ ”
He held her at arm’s length, and his eyes were serious. “I meant it when I said I wanted to talk. I want to know who you are and what you were doing in your nightgown on that Liverpool dock the night I found you.”
“I’d really rather go into it some other time,” she said, as lightly as she could manage. “I have an awful lot of work to do.”
He pulled her close to him. “Listen to me. I know that what you’ve been through is painful. I’ve not pressed you since we left England, but I’m here now, and you’re safe. I won’t let anything harm you, and I want to know everything about you.”
It was some minutes before she could speak. Against her will, she began to remember that night when she’d met Travis and her life before that. For years she’d been free, had come to know other people, to see how they lived, and she could see how much of a prison her childhood had been.
“I grew up totally without freedom,” she began, at first without emotion, but as she thought of the way she’d been treated in her early life, she began to grow angry.
Travis never rushed her, only held her close to him, his arms and body keeping her safe, as she poured out her whole story. It was a long time before she got to that night when she’d overheard Farrell and her uncle conspiring together. He never said a word, but his arms tightened.
She continued her story, telling Travis how she felt about him, how he frightened her, but how she clung to him, wavering between her need to prove her own worth and wanting to hide behind his strength. She poured out all the terror she’d felt at his plantation, laughing somewhat at that scared little girl, afraid to give orders to her own servants.
She finished with the story of her leaving him, of the trail she’d left behind, of her tears when he didn’t come after her.
“I could have helped you at home,” he said when she’d stopped talking. “But I knew you would have resented me. The day Margo came, the day you burned your hand, I could have killed Malvina.”
Twisting around, she looked at him. “I had no idea you knew about that.”
“I know most of what happens on my own plantation,” he said. “I just honestly didn’t know how to help you. I knew you had to learn how to help yourself.”
“Are you always right, my dear lovely husband?” she asked, caressing his face.
“Always. And I hope you remember it and obey me in all things from now on.”