Lost Lady by Jude Deveraux Page B

docks. If she could find her way back to Weston Manor, maybe Matta, her old maid, would know of some place Regan could go.
    Hours and hours seemed to pass, yet the sun was still bright, the noise of the docks still loud. Using all her powers of concentration, she tried to ignore the cramps in her legs, and the ache in her back. Twice she saw Travis go by, and the second time she was close to calling out to him. Perhaps it was the pain in her aching body, but she seemed to remember all too clearly the last time she’d been alone on the docks. Of course, then she’d been wearing only her nightgown, and how could she expect to be treated as a lady when she was dressed as a woman of low morals? Now, wearing the elegant velvet dress, everyone would recognize her as a lady, and they wouldn’t dare touch her.
    Smiling, her confidence somewhat restored, she tried to twist her hair into some semblance of order. Yesterday the French dressmaker and her assistants had worn their hair short, à la greque, and Regan wondered if possibly she should cut hers. Maybe it would give her an added air of sophistication in her new life—whatever that was to be.
    Her musings made the time pass, and when she saw that the sun was setting she felt as if she were about to embark on a great adventure. She had escaped the awful American, and she was free to go wherever she wanted.
    Slowly, painfully, she left her crouch, shaking her tired legs, and letting the blood return to them as she put her weight on them. As she stood erect, she realized that her feet were cut and the sores inside her shoes were covered with dried blood, which broke apart when she took her first step.
    Pulling her courage together, she stepped toward the darkening street. A lady, she reminded herself. She must carry herself like a lady and not let a little thing like lacerated, swollen feet make her limp. If she kept her shoulders back, her spine straight, her chin high, no one would bother her—no one would dare molest a lady.

Chapter 5
    N EWS OF A PRETTY YOUNG BIT OF FLUFF WALKING ABOUT the docks unescorted spread like fire through a dry forest. Men who were too drunk to walk somehow managed to drag themselves out of a stupor and stagger in the direction of the young woman. An entire shipload of sailors just in from a three-year voyage grabbed bottles of rum and ran toward where someone said there was a whole passel of women just waiting for them.
    Bewildered, trying very hard not to let her fear show, Regan did her best to ignore the ever-increasing crowd of men gathering around her. Some of them, grinning toothlessly and stinking of fish and worse, stuck out filthy, trembling hands to touch the velvet of her dress.
    â€œAin’t never felt nothin’ so soft,” they whispered.
    â€œAin’t never had me no lady before.”
    â€œThink ladies do it the same way as whores?”
    Faster and faster she began to walk, weaving away from the hands and the bodies placed in her way. No longer did she think of keeping the sea to her back; all she thought of was escape.
    The men of the docks seemed to toy with her just as they had the night she’d been wearing her nightgown, but it was when the young, virile, hungry sailors from the ship found her that the relatively gentle games ceased. When the sailors realized there was only one woman and not fifty as they’d been told, they grew angry, and their anger was directed at this one frightened-looking female.
    â€œHere, let me at her. I need more than a feel of her pretty dress,” leered one vigorous young man, reaching out and grabbing the shoulder of Regan’s dress.
    The fabric tore all the way to the top of her breast, exposing one fat, soft mound that made the men laugh delightedly. “Please stop,” Regan whispered, backing away from the sailors, only to have three pairs of hands lift her skirt and slip up the back side of her legs.
    â€œShe may be little, but