Lady Savage Read online

  Lady Savage

  Preparing to sail from Jamaica to England, Savina Roxeter knows she should be looking forward to marrying her betrothed and settling into a quiet and comfortable life among the ton, but she can only despair at the thought of leaving the lush and beautiful island she loves for the staid confines of London society. Once on the high seas, however, Savina’s thoughts turn only to survival, as their ship is commandeered and she and her party are left stranded on a primitive island with meager provisions and little hope of rescue.

  Determined not to succumb to their misfortune, the group set about assessing their surroundings and preparing for the rigorous challenge of the days and nights ahead. And while her imperious fiancé, his viperish sister, and even her own father bemoan the harsh conditions, Savina thrives as she becomes more attuned to the pulse and rhythm of nature—and the powerful desire she feels in the company of her fiancé’s secretary, Anthony Heywood.

  As the two are inexorably drawn together in this primal paradise, Savina casts aside her notions of impropriety and allows herself to respond to Anthony’s elemental strength and innate understanding of what’s truly important. And as the promise of a new and passionate future with Anthony becomes impossible to ignore, she will come to discover that surrendering to their burgeoning love may be the only rescue she truly needs . . .

  Title Page

  

  Copyright

  Lady Savage

  Donna Lea Simpson

  Beyond the Page Books

  are published by

  Beyond the Page Publishing

  www.beyondthepagepub.com

  Copyright © 2005 by Donna Lea Simpson.

  Cover design and illustration by Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs

  ISBN: 978-1-950461-35-6

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this book. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented without the express written permission of both the copyright holder and the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Books by Donna Lea Simpson

  About the Author

  One

  “I don’t want to go! Why was I born a woman and not a man?” Miss Savina Roxeter hammered her gloved fists on the polished railing of the ship Prosperous, docked in Jamaica’s Kingston Harbour and being prepared for the long ocean voyage back to England. “Men can do as they please. Men can work and live anywhere they want. It’s not fair.” She bit down on her lip to keep the tears from beading in her eyes.

  At least with only her maid and companion, Zazu, to hear her she was safe from censure, but she would not cry, not now, not ever. Instead she stared down at the scene below; as the ship creaked and groaned in its moorings, a steady stream of workers loaded the last crates of freight into the hold, hoisting them up over the railing and then lowering them into the cargo hatch. A breeze stirred and lifted the curls that escaped her bonnet, tangling them into elf-locks as she tugged impatiently at her gloves, wishing her hands would not perspire so in their confines. Panic welled up in her as she felt the confinement of everything: stays, bonnet, gloves, boots, ship . . . life.

  “How will I do it? Will I even like England? I haven’t been there for, oh, ten years now, almost. Why can Gaston-Reade and I not be married here and stay to manage his plantation?” When Zazu remained silent, she glanced sideways at the girl. Tears welled in Zazu’s dark eyes and threatened to spill over; Savina followed her line of vision to a dark-skinned young man who stood on the dock and stared up at the her.

  “Who is that?” Savina asked. The young fellow was foreshortened by their position so far above, but he was a well-set-up young man, and dressed neatly in plain clothes.

  “Nelson,” Zazu said, her voice oddly choked.

  “Nelson who?”

  Zazu waved at the young man and he waved back, but with such a forlorn expression, evident even at such a distance, that Savina’s heart twisted.

  “Nelson Walker. He is one of Lord Gaston-Reade’s serving staff at the plantation.”

  Savina’s breath caught in her throat. Even after so many years living in Jamaica, she could not accept humans owning other humans, nor would she ever. When she had arrived on the island as a child of not quite twelve years she had tried to befriend the dark-skinned children, only to be told by her governess that it was not possible, for they were chattel, not children. The shock of it had never waned and in her heart, though she had stopped speaking her mind openly, she knew there could never be any justification for the abomination of slavery. Her conclusion was that owning anyone was an illusion; you could not own the human spirit. “He’s . . . not a slave, is he?”

  “No, but his parents are slaves. He was born free by Lord Gaston-Reade’s father’s decree.”

  Savina watched her maid’s face, wondering how she had been so stupidly blind as to not see the changes there. “And you like him?” she said gently. “You like this young man, Nelson?” Though phrased as a question, she knew the answer.

  Zazu nodded, and a tear finally trickled down her soft brown cheek. She wiped it away with an impatient gesture and took in a deep, quavering breath.

  “You never told me,” Savina murmured, putting her arm around her maid’s shoulders.

  Shrugging, Zazu said, “What would have changed?” Her melodic voice was thick with tears, and the words saturated with the lilting inflection of her island birth. “I knew we were leaving, even as I . . . even as I grew to care for him.”

  “I asked you if you wanted to stay in Jamaica or go with me to England. Why didn’t you say anything then?”

  “Say what?” Zazu turned her tragic gaze on her employer. “Nelson and I cannot marry, and if you left me behind I would have no employment.”

  “But—”

  “No,” Zazu said, putting up one hand. “It is better this way. To continue as we were would have become unbearable.”

  “What do you mean?” Savina was still struggling to come to terms with this unexpected side of Zazu. How could she have been so consumed with her own life that she had missed this momentous change in Zazu? But it must be so, that she had been selfishly caught up in her own concerns and so had not seen that Zazu was falling in love. She squeezed the younger woman’s shoulders and released her. “What would be unbearable? What do you mean?”

  Zazu hu
ng her head, and in a low voice replied, “We have been walking out for three months now. Two weeks ago Nelson asked the earl for permission to marry, and he was denied. His lordship does not like his serving staff to have dependents. To stay here and not be with Nelson . . .” She broke off, one tear trickling down her cheek and staining the soft blue material of her dress bodice.

  “Why didn’t you ask me to intercede?” Savina asked, hurt by her maid’s lack of faith in her.

  Zazu, her full lips pursed against a choking sob, just shook her head.

  “Didn’t you trust me enough to ask?”

  The maid compressed her lips and her tears dried. She wiped away the last remnant and raised her head. “It was not a matter of trust,” she said, in her perfect, inflected English, her narrow chin tilting up.

  “Then it was foolish pride,” Savina returned, exasperated. That pride had served Zazu well over the years, keeping her strong, pushing her to learn so she would need no one’s help to decipher her mistress’s native tongue. At twelve, walking out of the mountains, barefoot and ragged but with an ineffable air of grace and dignity, she had spoken only a few words of English, her language being the patois of her people, the independent Maroons of the Jamaican Blue Mountains.

  And so rejecting help, she had learned English, and as her fourteen-year-old mistress had learned French, so had she. Her thirst for understanding of the wide world had led her to learn geography and mathematics and history, too, by sitting in on Savina’s lessons and reading in every spare moment from her duties as maid. She had been an inspiration to Savina, who felt she never would have learned so much if not for the constant example of Zazu’s insatiable hunger for knowledge.

  Zazu shook her head at Savina’s exasperation but remained silent, gazing down at her young man. She waved again, put her dark, slim fingers to her lips, kissed them, then blew the kiss down to him. She then turned away from the railing and did not look back. “It was not a matter of trust,” she repeated, her stiff shoulders indicating her awareness that Nelson Walker still stared up at her beseechingly.

  Savina, her heart aching for the fellow, gazed at him for a moment, then back at Zazu. She waited. The ship groaned with impatience; the pace of the workers accelerated around them.

  “And it was not a matter of pride,” Zazu finally said. She met Savina’s gaze. “I know you would have done your best to convince Lord Gaston-Reade to allow Nelson and I to marry. But why would you think his lordship would do anything for you?”

  “We’re to be married. He cares for me.” Savina searched her heart and then told the truth. Chin up, she said, “I would have asked it as a great favor.”

  “And that he might grant you, but it would have a cost and I would not subject you to any cost for me.”

  Savina gazed into Zazu’s beautiful brown eyes. Though she and her maid were close, she was aware in that moment that there was much the young woman thought and felt that they did not share. There was a chasm between them, and she felt the pain of it. After seven years together she thought they knew everything about each other, but she had been proved wrong.

  She nodded. “I understand.” And she did. One might be willing to beg favors for oneself, but if the cost of that favor was to be borne by someone else, one might be reluctant. Zazu was proud and independent, the legacy of her freedom-loving people thick in her veins. She took favors from no one, nor would she complain about the loss she would suffer.

  What could one do but admire such pride, while mourning the cost?

  “It is too hot.”

  The new voice, clear and filled with irritation, was that of Lady Venture Mills, who strolled the deck toward them with her fiancé, Mr. William Barker, and her brother, Lord Gaston-Reade, Savina’s fiancé. Savina’s father, Mr. Peter Roxeter, formerly a top governing official of Jamaica but now returning to England to retire, stepped up from the hatch in the middle of the deck and wiped his hand across his brow.

  “It’s too hot and this place smells. The whole island reeks of decay.” Lady Venture’s haughty, plain face, her nose patrician in length and shape and her eyes prominent, was pulled down in a scowl that marred the straight line of her lips.

  Savina steadied herself against the railing and awaited the others while Zazu murmured that she was going to retire belowdecks to see to Savina’s things. Without a single look over her shoulder she did just that, and when Savina looked over the railing once, it was to see young Nelson Walker retreat, his shoulders slumped, his head down. She didn’t even know him but she felt his pain. Zazu was a rare treasure; to love her and lose her would be devastating.

  “You have been saying that since we arrived in Jamaica, Vennie,” Lord Gaston-Reade said to his sister of her complaints about the heat and smell. He approached Savina and nodded to her. “You didn’t have to come,” he said, still talking to his sister, “and you are returning to England now, so it would be a most pleasant change if you would cease your endless stream of complaints.”

  Mr. William Barker, a pleasant, round-faced young man, supported his fiancée with one hand to her back and one under her arm. He had been a minor government official in Savina’s father’s office, and had first expressed an interest in her, before she was affianced to Gaston-Reade. But then Lady Venture had latched on to him. He had flopped once or twice and then allowed himself to be reeled in. She was a very good match for the young man, much wealthier than Savina, and it was acclaimed as a piece of luck on his part. Savina felt sorry for him but supposed he would be happy, or at least wealthy, which for some people was the same thing.

  Lady Venture and Lord Gaston-Reade bickered back and forth. Savina let their voices become background as she leaned on the railing and looked her last at Jamaica, away from the bustling port of Kingston toward the misty Blue Mountains. If she closed her eyes she could see the cool green of the palms and ferns and feel the breeze that swept down from the mountains. She and her father had lived in an airy and spacious manse between the capital city of Spanish Town and the most prosperous seaport, Kingston. Though he had spent much time in Spanish Town, a beautiful old city, she had preferred to stay on their estate and oversee the household and attached farm.

  She closed out the smells of the port, the sea, the cargo, the dirt and filth inevitable in any port city, and instead let her senses remember jasmine-scented breezes in the morning, and the forest after rain, earthy and rich as if the mother goddess of creation had perfumed her limbs with loam and dew. Home for her was a large stone house set atop a hill, with open windows, white muslin curtains fluttering in the breeze, teak furniture gracing the flagged terrace, and the mountains as her view. Her days were taken up with study, managing the farm, and entertaining for her father when he had company back from Spanish Town. It was there that she had first met Lord Gaston-Reade, and there, in her own lovely home, that he had courted her with the express approval and encouragement of her father.

  And now they were sailing to England to be married. What would London hold? Her memories from childhood were of mist and rain, cups of bitter chocolate and toast in front of the fire, and long winters when the ice and snow made the streets filthy and kept everyone indoors. It would be a difficult adjustment after the lazy drift from day to day of warm sun, warm rain, warm breezes.

  “Savina. Savina!”

  Her fiancé’s voice brought her back to the present and she looked up into Gaston-Reade’s gray eyes. The tide was turning, and the ship creaked and grunted with the shifting waters.

  “Your expression was most peculiar. What were you thinking about just now?” he asked.

  “Jamaica,” she answered, straightening with a sigh.

  “But we’re still here.”

  “Not this Jamaica,” she said, waving her hand to indicate the port below them as the pace on the deck accelerated. With the turn of the tide they were about a half hour away from casting off, she supposed, and her stomach rumbled with anxiety. “This Jamaica,” she continued, tapping her head. Then she covered her he
art with one hand. “And this Jamaica. I’ll miss it.” She hesitated and gazed up into his gray eyes. There was still time, if she hurried. “Albert,” she said, trying out his Christian name. He frowned but she surged ahead, undaunted. “Why don’t we stay here? If you hurry, you could tell the captain and they could unload our things. Why don’t we stay here, get married and look after your family plantations? Papa can stay too, then, and live on Tanager with us.”

  His secretary, Mr. Anthony Heywood, approached with Savina’s father and stood, watching the interchange. He shaded his eyes in the midday sun and steadily stared.

  Gaston-Reade, his handsome bony face a mask of incomprehension, said, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Yes, don’t be silly, Savina,” her father said irritably. His mouth pursed and he looked a little gray as the ship lurched.

  “I’m not,” she insisted, steadying herself against the railing. She knew port life, even though she had not lived in Kingston, nor even Spanish Town, and she knew there still was time to unload their belongings if she was able to convince her fiancé she was serious. She should have gathered her courage and done this earlier, but not one to be put off by what she should have done and hadn’t, she pushed ahead. She put one hand on Lord Gaston-Reade’s wool-clad arm. She felt the others’ gazes on her, Lady Venture’s horror-stricken likely, and Mr. Barker’s sympathetic.

  Her father’s stare was anxious. Mr. Heywood was watching her most intently. It would affect him if Lord Gaston-Reade decided to honor her request, but it was time, finally, to consider what she truly wanted deep inside.. And Zazu . . . how this would change her life! She must, at last, be forthright if she was to be happy. “I’m not being ridiculous. There is so much to do here!” she said, squeezing her fiancé’s arm. “We could manage Tanager together,” she continued, naming his plantation and estate. “I may not have experience with managing a plantation, but I know the country, and I know the people. I do understand plantation life.”

  “Savina—”