“Well, Dalton, what do you think of your young protégée’s radical thoughts?”
Alex smiled his most noncommittal smile. “The lady is entitled to her own opinions without ridicule—but it’s bad enough that boys’ minds are subjected to torturous Latin without adding the fairer sex.”
“You didn’t enjoy Latin?” Emily fixed him with eyes that held serious curiosity. The memory of her body, soft and docile beneath his touch, teased his memory.
“No—and I enjoyed my sardonic schoolmaster even less.”
General laughter ensued.
“But then, I was a restless child.”
“When misguided adults stifle restlessness, they unwittingly stifle the child’s mental abilities as well,” she said, adorably impassioned.
She’s so damnably lovely. And she’s yours for taking…forever if you want.
He pushed the dangerous thought down and refocused his attention on the conversation.
“Still, studying Latin did me no harm.” She said the words calmly.
Dead silence ensued. Even Alex blinked, speechless. He’d had no idea she was that thoroughly educated.
“You studied Latin grammar?” one man finally asked, his eyes threatening to bug out of his head.
Women studying Latin wasn’t unheard of, but to this company it must have seemed like the harbinger of pandemonium throughout the whole social order.
“My grandfather was a schoolmaster and he insisted on it,” she replied. “But formal study can only do so much. Observation of the natural world is important for understanding. Following nature is the march of man.”
“You quote Joel Barlow as well?” asked Cogswell, a smile playing about his lips. “You’re a very strange flavor of Jacobinism, Miss Eliot.”
“You accuse me of Jacobinism based on what?” Emily asked, her voice sharper than Alex had ever heard it.
“Most young ladies accept the political wisdom of their fathers and husbands. For you to reject your father’s opinion so irreverently is in itself a hallmark of Jacobinism. Are you a Jacobin, Miss Eliot?” Cogswell demanded, fixing her with a stern look.
“I am not, sir,” Emily said defensively, her face flushing.
Mrs. Cogswell perked up, seeing a lifeline to direct the conversation out of such murky waters. “Yes, Miss Eliot, who was your father?”
“Tom Eliot of Salem, a sea captain,” Emily said, glancing at Mrs. Cogswell. Her face was still flushed and her hand trembled on her wineglass as her eyes flashed defensively.
Alex had wanted to stir a little controversy, not throw flames at the other side. She was totally disgracing herself—and him by proxy—in wearing her emotions, her offense, so openly. He had seriously miscalculated her ability to conduct herself in public. It just went to show how really untried and naïve she was. And it also proved beyond a doubt that he was the veriest wolf for taking advantage of her.
She was still a girl. Yes, she was nineteen, and other women were married at her age; but she had been unduly sheltered. Isolated. Not allowed to fully develop socially. Even if he were worthy of her hand, she wasn’t ready to be his wife. He held his breath as the realization settled over him with brutal effect.
She was still a girl, not emotionally ready to be a wife…and yet he had made a woman of her.
What would he do to fix that? He had to fix it; he had to make things right for her. If she suffered because of his weakness and need for her, he would never be able to bear it.
God, what was he going to do with his claret-haired girl? How would he ever make things right again?
Cogswell wasn’t done. “Any woman who would disrespect her father’s opinions directly mirrors the social upheavals taking place in France as we speak.”
“I don’t condone the violence, but not all French ideas are wrong,” Emily said.
Cogswell’s gray brows snapped together and he lifted his chin slightly. “Our government, well based in English law, is the best in the world. We don’t need French philosophy degrading our moral fiber.”
“Our government may be the best, but it’s not perfect. Some issues are incomplete.”
“Such as?”
“Slavery,” Emily said calmly, as if she wasn’t opening a keg of powder.
Cogswell’s face went rigid. “Well, it’s your Mr. Jefferson and the other Democratic-Republican rabble who engage in slaver—”
“Just as many northerners profit by the slave trade. Many here in Philadelphia have slaves as their servants—”
“Allow me to finish, Miss Eliot. ’Twas God’s decision to place the slaves subordinate to the white man—as it was His decision to place children subordinate to their fathers and women to their husbands.”
Alex tapped the table slowly, feeling his jaw tightening. A social disaster, growing worse by the moment. Still, with the subject raised, he couldn’t remain silent. “Where is your proof, Cogswell, that God intended slavery?”
“So you advocate setting all the slaves free to wander helpless and starve in the streets?” Cogswell said in a challenging tone
“I advocate no such thing. It would have to be well thought out, carefully executed.”
“And they said your association with radical abolitionists was only in passing.”
Alex’s jaw began to ache and he recalled why he never brought these topics up. Outside of political circles, such debates did little good and were ultimately too frustrating. But with the topic opened up, it was impossible to hold back. “Men are men, no matter their skin. In addition, slaveholding encourages the worst kinds of inhuman arrogance.”
“Well, well, well.” Cogswell put down his napkin and sat back in his chair, folding his hands together and studying Alex with a superior sneer. “So the neutral mask drops at last to reveal the radical beneath.” Looking well satisfied, he exchanged meaningful glances with many of the other men.
Recovering her aplomb, Mrs. Cogswell redirected the conversation and, by the dessert course, tensions had eased.
“Miss Eliot?” Everyone turned in surprise at Green’s first words of the entire evening.
“Yes, Mr. Green?” Emily’s voice wavered.
“Your father was Captain Tom Eliot of Salem?”
“Yes, I believe she already said so, Captain Green,” Mrs. Cogswell said, clearly irritated to have the conversation return to Emily. “Why?”
“Oh, I just wanted to be sure I’d heard correctly.”
The most peculiar smirk played about his lips, like that of a cat that had swallowed the juiciest bird.
* * * *
When the ladies had retired and the gentlemen were seeking the chamber pots from the sideboard cabinets, Alex wasted no time. He strode over to Green and took his arm, then spoke roughly and low.
“If you malign her publicly, I’ll call you out just as publicly.”
Green just grinned more widely, his eyes glittered with strange fire. “You know what I think?”
Alex glared coldly down his nose. “I don’t particularly care to know your thoughts.”
The older man snickered. “Well, I’ll tell you anyway. I think you care a great deal more than you’d like to admit about that little girl you picked up at the Blue Duck. I think you’d like to make her your wife. Wouldn’t it be a shame if her name were to become so reviled that you could not attach your name to hers without being reviled in the same way?”
“Never test me, Green. You don’t want to find out what would happen.”
“You’ve always had a secret to hold over my head. Now I have one to hold over yours. You’ll know what it’s like always to be looking over your shoulder. Every time someone laughs and whispers when you walk by, you’ll wonder if they know that your wife is a Hell City tramp.” Green placed his finger to the side of his nose, winked and laughed softly.
“No one would believe the story anyway,” Alex said, without any faith.
Green shrugged. “Or something worse could always happen.”
Coldness filled Alex�
��s heart. “You crazy bastard—if you harm her, I’ll kill you.”
Green just tapped the side of his nose again and snickered.
* * * *
Awoken by frantic knocking, Alex stumbled sleepily from his bed and donned his banyan over his nightshirt. The howl of the wind had sped up since he’d fallen asleep. He glanced at his window. Fat splatters of rain beat at the glass. He struggled to come awake. Vague queasiness centered in his stomach and he swallowed against a bad taste in the back of his mouth. He felt oddly weak, as though he’d been drunk. But he hadn’t.
The knocking intensified.
“Mr. Alexander? Are you in there?” Mrs. Webbs’ voice said in a loud whisper.
“Yes, yes, just a moment,” he called.
Whilst tying his belt, he went to the door then opened it.
Mrs. Webbs’ candle illuminated her face.
“What?” he asked.
“It’s Miss Emily.”
“Yes, what about her?”
“Miss Emily had a little too much too drink this evening, didn’t she?”
“Yes, one could say that.”
“And of course you sent her to bed…all by her lonesome?”
“I couldn’t exactly put her to bed with myself, could I?”
Mrs. Webbs raised her brows. “Hmmmmph.”
“What the devil does that mean?”
“It means I am a foolish old woman, but what do I know? Once the candles are blown out, folks could be playing hide and seek in and out of the bedchambers down here. But what would I know up there all tucked into my own bed?” She pursed her lips.
He rubbed his aching stomach absently. God help him, that dreadful pork.
Mrs. Webbs rolled her eyes up at the ceiling. “She’s up there.”
His sleepy brain had trouble comprehending her meaning. “Up where?”
“Up on the widow’s walk.”
“It’s storming.” He couldn’t help his incredulous tone.
Mrs. Webbs pursed her lips again. “It may well be storming but Miss Emily is up there—and having a grand time of it singing and dancing.”
“Good God.”
“Now if your Aunt Rachel hears of this, you’ll likely never hear the end. Not to mention if that girl catches her death.”
Her last words cut through his sleepy, half sick haze. His mind came awake and he could picture Emily up there in the storm with brutal clarity.
Alicia had fallen from the roof.
It hadn’t even been raining. Not even a drizzle.
And Emily was perhaps just as intoxicated.
A cramp roiled through his guts. He took a slow ragged breath.
“Or she might fall,” Mrs. Webbs said in a dry tone. He knew her woman’s ways. She was purposely goading him. Telling what he already knew. Her hazel brown eyes accused him. She’d not been happy with him since Emily came to live in this house. She believed he should simply marry Emily and all the problems would be solved.
Well, life wasn’t that simple, was it?
“Just a moment,” he said, turning away to fetch his boots.
“I could send two of the girls up there.”
He came back to the door. “No. I’d best take care of this. Alone.”
Alex squinted, trying to see through the wind-blown rain. But there it was. A petite, thin feminine shape out in the middle of the walk. Dancing just as Mrs. Webbs had said.
The little fool!
Anger added to the lingering sense of burning in his gut from the horrid supper.
He strode out to her, hardly feeling the slashing cut of cold rain and wind on his face. Her eyes grew large at his approach. With her hair drenched and clinging to her face, all sharp diminutive chin and angular cheekbones, she looked like a little drowned fox.
“What the devil are you doing up here?” he snapped.
“I love storms and I felt so hot in my chamber. There’s no air at all and my stomach started to feel so dreadful. I just wanted to feel the coolness of the rain and—why are you glowering at me like that?” She took several steps backwards.
“Don’t stand so close with your back to the rail! Can’t you see that you could slip and fall over backwards?”
She scoffed. “I am well aware of what I am doing so you needn’t grumble at me so.”
The soaked nightdress stuck to her lithe form and revealed every line and shape. Her rose-colored nipples stood against the fabric like sharp points. “Where is your cloak?”
This time she scowled. “I am so tired of you telling me what to do…all the time!”
“Believe me, I am tired of having to play the guardian!”
“Ha! Some guardian! You hypocritical lecher!” She lifted her skirts and her bare feet and ankles glowed white against the dark, weathered floor.
He winced involuntarily at the sight. “Where are your damned shoes, girl?”
His words were delivered to her back as she took flight, running towards the other end of the walk.
Sudden severe pain in his stomach held him immobile a moment.
She resumed dancing. He couldn’t keep images of what Alicia must have looked like on the roof that day she had either fallen or jumped from it.
Emily was quite intoxicated.
He breathed uneasily through the last wave of the cramp. “Come, now, Emily, you’re going to catch your death of a fever up here.” He walked to her, more slowly this time, trying to keep his expression free of his increasing vexation. He didn’t want to incite her to run or make any other reckless moves again. However, he felt a rising sense of urgency to reach her. Every time she neared the rail, he felt himself age ten years.
When he got his hands on her, he would drag her bodily inside.
Damned if he wouldn’t.
She danced, weaving drunkenly, to and fro.
Emily stopped and staggered a bit and approached the railing.
“Whoa!” she cried out, gripping the rail and leaning hard. Her eyes jerked quickly back and forth and her complexion went green.
She was going to vomit.
Now.
He took two steps forward, forcing his legs to move the full range of their motion. He couldn’t seem to move quick enough.
A convulsive wave shook her and she lurched forward.
The rail moved.
His heart stopped. The ability to move even faster overtook him, as though from somewhere outside of himself. He wrapped his arms about her waist and pulled her backwards against himself. As she retched freely, he held her about the waist, dragging her away from the rail a bit.
The episode subsided and he helped her to kneel on the wooden floor. She sat there panting. He gave her sodden hair a stroke then he removed his oilskin and dropped it over her shoulders and head.
He left her to walk to edge. The damaged part of the rail had not broken away but remained hanging half attached. He started at it in disbelief for a moment. He’d no idea the structure had rotted or weakened. He gave the splintered spindles a stout kick and it broke away and he watched it fall to the ground.
He could picture Emily falling just as easily.
If he had not been here.
If he had not moved quickly enough…
He began to shake as full realization of the moment just past sank in on him. If he had lost her…
Harsh, ugly sounds of his dear lover being ill carried over the wind. The odor of sickness and blood chilling fear of what might have happened served to intensify the raw, burning pain he’d suffered since awakening. He leaned slightly over the edge and gave into his own nausea.
* * * *
Alex hung their nightclothes up by the fire to dry and then he walked to Emily’s bed. God, she was so pale.
He reached out and touched her cheek, caressing his fingertips slowly over the satin surface. She gave a soft, miserable moan in her sleep. Half consciousness was probably a better term.
It had been some time before he’d recovered his own strength enough to even bring her back he
re to her chamber.
Hell and damnation. That dreadful pork.
He traced the triangular shape of her jaw line and chin. A little vixen.
His vixen.
He could still be objective. She was certainly no beauty.
Yet, he adored every line and angle of her face. Adored it so much, that sometimes to stare at her gave him an odd, aching sensation in his chest, in his throat. Like now.
He loved the girl herself even more. And be damned to Cogswell. Alex had always detested the man. Indeed, Emily was in the right of it. Why should Alex condescend to pay a visit to such an odious, common-minded man?
Alex remembered the spark of fiery idealism in Emily’s eyes as she set those stiff-necked prigs back on their heels.
He could admit it to himself. He loved her all the more for having done it.
She had such love and light in her. She deserved better than he could ever give her.
Tonight, it had struck him just how much he loved her. Loved her enough to deny himself. To do the one thing that would likely kill him. The right thing to do would be to leave her now. Not just to leave her bedchamber but to really leave.
He should go to his chamber and sleep off the lingering weakness. Then at first light, he should pack a small valise and leave for New Orleans. Or Europe. Anywhere. Just to leave her before things got any deeper between them. She was young. A little wild and incredibly stubborn. But her heart was yet pure, yet malleable.
She would forget him.
He winced. Just the thought of her forgetting him was too much to bear.
She stirred in her sleep. Her moan drifted to his ears, soft as a feather. Then she rolled away to the other side of the bed, leaving the spot closer to him open.
He was damned.
Always damned.
But he couldn’t help stretching out beside her, getting under the cover and drawing close to her body and cradling her in his arms.
He must leave Philadelphia soon for her sake. But it didn’t have to be this very morning.
* * * *
In her bed, Emily watched Alex as he sat at her side and wiped her face with a cool, wet cloth. He looked so grim. She couldn’t blame him. She had been ill twice more since he brought her to bed. To her shock, he had remained beside her all night. But he had been so quiet.
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