Thank you to all who have reviewed and for the honestly within them. I do apologize to have to repost this chapter however it needed revision. I also apologize that I am fighting major writer's block, lack of time, life, and possible retirement from altogether. I promise that I will at least try to finish this story in seeing that I have only two to three more chapters. Please stay with me if you will and I hope my vision for this story will become clearer within the next few chapters. Again, thank you for the reviews and please have a second look. Please tell me what you think and I am also looking for a beta.
England -- King's Ball (earlier in the night)
As the chill of the moonlit room made contact with John Smith's heated flesh it awoke him from his stupor. He had not said anything, not a word as she ran from the room with tears falling from her eyes. He had wanted revenge. For years it was all he'd dreamt, to see Rolfe crumble as he felt a fraction of the pain that he himself had felt.
However, he never fully comprehended the hurt he would inflect and never foresaw the pain he now felt. He had been blinded by vengeance and want. All he wanted now was to shout her name. Now, he realized that with his pride he had tipped the invisible balance between the lines of love and hate. She was lost to him forever. He had had only shown his spite and not his love. Pocahontas had been his again and he had ruined her. Placing on his jacket he retreated into the darkness.
England- The Present
Rachel's hands moved of their own accord as they made there way across the smooth muscled chest in front of her. He gasped at her touch, she felt things low in her body tighten. Her lips moved in a long line down his chest and stopped only to hover above the perfection of a belly button. As she moved in for her kill she heard it, and it was not her shutters again. Rachel was use to John Smith's unrelenting knocking but the hard banging coming from her door she just could not stand. He had interrupted a very precarious monetary transaction. "Tisk tisk, she thought. Coyly she turned toward her guest with a searing kiss that spoke of passions yet to be fulfilled, it stayed him. Turning quickly she made a hasty exit and prayed that her door would still be attached to its frame.
To imagine her surprise at the state of the man pushing inside her flat would be unfathomable. He stood in total disarray, one which that even in his drunken stupors he did not manage, however the frightening thing for her was that he was totally sober. She moved then to take his strong arm and pulled him to her, his eyes were troubled in the low light. The heart that Rachel didn't think she had anymore hurt for her friend. She had not left him at the ball this way and it was most likely his own doing that landed him in this state. Something must have gone very wrong.
Rachel refused to let John Smith sit in silence, the last time she did that he nearly drank himself to death and she would not… would not… carry him again! The opening of her bed room door startled her. "Oh," she had forgotten about him. Apologetically she looked to her lover as a soft had brushed across her full chest; it sent the young man back to the bedroom. She turned back to Smith.
"What did you do?" Why did that sentence seem so familiar to her?
He sat silent and still. She didn't think he registered her question. Slowly she approached him and brought her hand toward his shoulder. She gasped as his hand in mid air caught her's, gently. With a tender touch he brought her hand to his shoulder and looked up in his answer.
"I hurt her."
That sent a chill down Rachel, she knew violence all to well, but he could never hurt any woman in that way. He had even saved her.
Flashback, London 1604
Rachel remembered her own burses and the way they had stung the morning after. She would not have been alive to day had it not been for John's merciful hand pulling her drunken client off her. As the rain pelted her skin she watched as her golden savior, she had not known his name then, rammed her attacker into the wall next to her. Rachel had clawed at the wall beside her but only managed to see her saving grace pummel her ex- patron to the ground. She had felt the warm spray of blood fall over her skin but she was not frightened. She was young then and had not chosen correctly in her nightly endeavor. His breath was ragged and she watched as his muscles coiled tight willing for the next blow. But there wasn't another, there was no need. But there wasn't another, there hadn't need to be. The man who had given her two pounds for her body and abused it lay unconscious and was no longer a threat. She had been frightened when John's hand reached out for her's, but the warmth she felt from his calloused hand squeezing hers told her otherwise. From then own she had owed him her life simply because he had saved hers.
Rachel knew better than to dwell in the past and quickly beat down her own daemons and listened.
"She traded her flesh, I… I lay with her." His voice hardened, "I destroyed our love. I betrayed her!
"You're wrong you know." Rachel sneered.
"How?" he choked out.
Rachel being the insightful person that she was figured that there were several problems with his statement. Oh, he truly felt what he did, there was no doubt, their little jealously game had caused problems, it was meant to. But "destroyed love?" Could a true deep love ever be destroyed," she did not think so. Rachel could tell he still loved the native woman, it was in his eyes and they never lied. "She traded her flesh." Hmm, Rachel did that everyday. "At least they loved each other. What was their problem? Didn't they know martyrdom was overrated?" she thought.
"Possession goes both ways John. She made her own choice to marry him and to fuck you tonight… she wanted you like you wanted her but both of you are damned fools for thinking hurting each other will get rid of your past…well Johnny Boy, it wont."
The ever clever, blunt, but honest Rachel continued her assault and responded with what she thought best.
"You two had a good fuck and now what, you're crying foul? You two love each other and think it's fair to be blind to that love. You two are prideful and don't have enough courage to do the right things, even if that means letting go of your own hurt or hurting someone else's feelings… you two need each other."
He stiffened at her words.
"She was mine; mine once Rachel…now she's his."
His pride was wounded Rachel could tell,
"You two can't let go of your past because you're bound to it. You didn't force her John, she made her own decision to make love to you but I'm sure she wanted more… a word…a push that would shatter that wall I'm sure she has around her heart. But you, you didn't because the wall around yours is just as thick. Will someone have to die for you two to love?"
Her chest heaved heavily, she was sure her guest heard her. Again, another rant on an emotion she had hadn't felt in years, she was too tainted. He sat and sat. The in a slow controlled motion he stood. He was angered, she was sure he was, at which part she was not too sure.
"I went to her to make things right, to love her, but it wasn't enough." He spoke in loathing.
"Then you lie to yourself, you might have wanted to make things right but to beat her husband as well. He's not what keeps her from you, you are. You two are drawn like moths to a dangerous flame. No, you being the numb bastard was what kept her from you.
He could not stand to hear more, the truth was always hard to hear particularly when you knew the truth and its implications. Moving quickly he headed toward the door. It was what he always did; it was what he was trained to do, leave and then assess the damage. But he fought to brake that cycle, Pocahontas had shown him a better way. He had to correct his mistakes; he had to wash away what he had become even if that would be at his own expense. He stopped as he heard Rachel's voice,
"And leave the whores alone John."
He nodded to Rachel and closed the heavy door. In no words at all he had promised her that he would return to his home. Rachel moved toward her bedroom, she no longer wanted rapture, her own daemons were back to haunt her and there was only one place she could be free of them, in Christ Church.
England, The Rolfe Home-The Present
Finger nails scrapped loud against cold wood; as the body that lay strewn across it reached out and braced itself to move. Her arms were stiff, she must have lain there for hours. Gingerly Pocahontas crawled to all fours and with time her vision began to clear.
She stood, a hand greedily took hold of a pale wall. She heard no sound, oddly the room was still and her light footfalls were harsh against the polished floor. She knew her husband was gone, to where she did not know, but she hoped he found his solace and forgiveness.
Jugging by the state of her dress, which were whole and complete, her husband's anger only violated her bruised skin and not her body. She would grant him his forgiveness again. Pocahontas grabbed her cloak and covered her battered body as best she could and made her way to the only place that she would find solace, with her husband's god.
The night air was damp against her skin as her cloak began to slip open in her haste. That did not stop her; she was too hard pressed to reach her destination. The door was heavy as her small hands fought the grained cedar to enter; she managed the feat and press forward into the churches orange glow. She chose the fourth row, the closest she was allowed to the alter. She, with her heathen soul had been pitied by God in her baptism so she was allowed her forth row, a least that's how her husband explained it to her. Her legs ached as they bent in the narrow space and her knees throbbed as they made contact with the stone floor, but all the pain began creep away as memories transported her to the life she had left behind and a past she wished she could forget.
Flashback, Powhatan Village 1607
"The pain had been unbearable and as the smell of blood filled the air she knew it was over. The dull ach had started as she bent low picking ripe corn in the humid heat. She had hoped it would lessen as she worked, several of the older women had told her what to expect during her time, but the twinge of pain that traveled through her body was not expected. It had not felt right and as she sunk to the ground she blinked back tears. Her next memory was that of waking to a burning sensation and the urgent need to push. Her deer skin dress had clung to her as the persistent need to bear down overrode any fight not to, it was too soon. She drifted in and out of consciousness, vaguely aware of her own life but completely aware for the lack of the other.
The room smelled of her own blood and as she gazed at the circle of women around her she had known. Most of their faces were closed off but a few, those closet to her, their eyes glistened as they watched her watch them. It was those glistening eyes that told her the truth, that she had been betrayed. How long they had been poisoning her she did not know. Nevertheless, there could be only one who would benefited from her loss and could have ordered it.
She had had a son her father told, small enough to have fit in his hands and had a patch of light colored hair; her father told her could not distinguish its exact color as he said it changed in the light. She never knew what color her son's eyes had been; her father said they never opened as was expected. She never got the chance to hold him; they had him burned before her eyes ever opened. Powhatan had cried for her then, perhaps for himself too. She could not feel, could not cry. Her father had taken from her what she had loved the most and it stood as the first of his warning toward the leader of the outsiders. In her pain she took heed of his threat, for their safety the outsiders would have to leave."
Her thoughts drifted back to the present. "Rolfe had been her way out?" she wondered.
The yank of the door and the sudden foot steps coming down the aisle startled her, "Rolf could not have found her that fast." As her heart threatened to jump out of her throat she listened and expected to be yanked at any moment.
"What are you doing her?" the sultry voice called and Rachel could only guess as to why she'd run into her.
Pocahontas had recognized voice and looked up to see the fiery redhead stair down at her. She became conscious of her battered state and made a move to lift her hood when Rachel caught her hand. Of course she struggled this was Rachel, the mistress of her lover. However, the older woman was stronger and pulled her toward the light, that's when her tears spilled.
"She will only to mock me," Pocahontas thought.
There had been only a few times in her life that Rachel had ever been astonished, she was a pessimist, but to see the defilement of the woman before her surly toped her list. She was not a stranger to violence, it came with the territory of being a prostitute, but she had never recognized the same pain in someone else. With a loud thump Rachel sat down hard next Pocahontas and did the only thing she could do in an understanding of shared pain, she pull the woman to her and let her own tears break through. And that's how Rolfe would later find them.
England- The Present
"How did it all go wrong?" That was question in which the hooded figure asked himself as he crossed the wet cobblestones of poor London. At a brisk pace he walked down the darkened streets and narrow alleyways, he was alone, yet in the back of his mind he knew he was not.
Familiar with his surroundings and London's night life John Rolfe knew that around each bend were rouged faces, tarnished reputations, and willing souls to convert for his comfort. In the low lamp light he spotted her, this rouged soul was coved in cheap linen and smelled of ale but tonight he would hold her in his arms like the angel she would never be and pretend she was another. He could save this soul, at least for this night.