Ember Island

by Kimberley Freeman

Tilly slid the letter back into the drawer, hand shaking. Jasper had lied to her. He had lied to her. Why? What reason did he have to pretend he hadn’t received the letters?

  She scooped up her candle and left Jasper’s room for her own. There, she snuffed the little flame and lay flat on her back on top of the covers. Her heartbeat choked her. For a few awful moments, nothing made sense. North was south and up was down.

  But then she realized. He had been unable to write from embarrassment. From shame about his reduced circumstances. Perhaps he had intended to write when the money he was expecting came in. Perhaps he would have seen it wrong to write to her, pretending all was well.

  Perhaps it wasn’t that Jasper was dishonest, but that he was too honest. That was it. That had to be it.

  Underneath her, remembered waves still rolled. She drifted off, fully dressed, and didn’t stir until morning.

  •

  In the morning light, the house looked quite different. Breakfast waited for her in the sunny conservatory, and she cheered a little. The morning staff was a pretty, oval-faced young woman named Miss Broussard who smiled at her warmly but spoke poor English.

  “Has Mr. Dellafore been down for breakfast?” Tilly asked her.

  “No, madame.”

  He must be sleeping late. Tilly remembered the letter in his bureau, and hoped he wouldn’t notice the papers had been disturbed. She fought against the feeling again that she didn’t know him. She was in a new place, in a new life, still grieving for her beloved grandfather: the only parent she had known. It was to be expected that she would feel displaced for a while.

  After breakfast, Tilly decided some fresh air would make her feel better, so she tied on her bonnet and went outside into the overgrown garden. The bracing sea air cleared her lungs of the dusty heaviness of the house, and she walked down the slope peering through weeds into the garden beds. There were hedges here in need of pruning: hydrangeas and dark pink impatiens and flowering magnolia trees. Moldering leaves lay in the beds, nearly a year after they fell. She felt the first glimmer of that quiet excitement, thinking of tidying and weeding and pruning to reveal the natural beauty that grew here. She understood that Jasper could not afford a gardener, so surely he wouldn’t object to her pulling on a pair of sturdy gloves and tidying the beds herself. Working outside in the sun and sea air would do her good, make her feel she was contributing in some way.

  “Good morning, my darling!”

  Tilly turned to see Jasper approaching. He was dressed sharply and smiling. The only thing that gave away his late evening the night before were the dark shadows under his eyes. Tilly’s heart lifted. “Good morning. I take it business went . . . better.”

  He waved his hand dismissively. “You aren’t to worry about my business. But your trunk has arrived. And I’ve seen what’s in it.” He stopped in front of her. His height and bearing gave her the same thrill she’d felt while they were courting. There was something proud and straight about him, like bright steel.

  Her ribs expanded proudly. “The candlesticks will look lovely in the parlor. It is very bare and empty at the moment.”

  “Well, now . . . perhaps we can keep one or two things. But, Tilly, the value of the items, when I sell them, will entirely erase my debt. Then, when the money I am owed comes in, we will be comfortably wealthy again.”

  Tilly took a deep breath. “Then the sensible thing to do is to sell it all. The sooner your debt is cleared, the better. I like it better when you smile and are relaxed.” Yes, she liked that better than she liked holding on to objects. If anything, there was something pleasant about the idea that Godfrey and Pamela, who had so much, would be helping to pay out Jasper’s debt.

  Jasper took her hand and raised it to his lips, kissed it gently. Then turned it over and kissed the inside of her wrist, closing his eyes. His mouth was warm, and it lingered on the sensitive skin there. Tilly flushed hot.

  “I am so glad you came, my love,” he said, then dropped her hand, leaving her longing for more and closer physical intimacy. A shiver of cool ran over her skin.

  Jasper gestured around the garden. “I’m afraid the gardener was the first to go. A month ago. But next spring, it will be back to its former glory.”

  Tilly knew he was lying. There had been no gardener here for much longer than a month, but she understood now that he was embarrassed about his circumstances.

  “I wonder,” she ventured, “if you’d let me do a little work in the garden. I feel at home with soil and leaves.”

  “You may do as you please, my dear. If that is what your heart desires, then by all means make this place your own. Here.” He fished in his pocket for his keys, and carefully removed one from the chain. “This is the key for the gardener’s shed. Use it as you see fit. Now, I have a gentleman coming in an hour to go through the trunk with me and give me some money for it. It’s not women’s business, so do stay well away.”

  Tilly was about to say she wanted to see some of the things one last time. The clock from the old parlor at Grandpa’s house, for example. But then she realized it would probably make her melancholy. “Of course, Jasper.” She smiled. “I am glad that you are happy.”

  “I feel as though a weight has lifted off me.” He touched her chin lightly with his index finger. “Good girl.” And then he walked away.

  Tilly spied the gardener’s shed at the bottom of the garden, between two birch trees. She made her way down, fitted the key into the lock, and swung the door in. A small window let in a little light, filtered through branches. Rakes, brooms, pruning shears, secateurs, pitchforks, watering cans, trowels . . . Jasper must never have been in here, for surely he would have sold the lot if he’d known how much there was. There were shelves along one wall, with boxes full of seed packets, rolls of wire, nails, and spikes. Tilly found a pair of sturdy gloves and took them down from their box to give to Miss Broussard to wash. Once they were clean, she could make a start on the weeds.

  The garden shed smelled musty, and she was tempted to leave the door open to let the sea air in. But Jasper might see inside and sell everything and then she could do no gardening at all. So she locked it, strangely pleased that she had a key to somewhere Jasper couldn’t go.

  •

  Tilly sat in her room, waiting for the meeting downstairs to finish. The gentleman, the buyer of all their goods, was taking a long time to agree on a price with Jasper. She hadn’t seen him, but he had a Spanish accent and when he raised his voice and Jasper raised his own, Tilly had closed the door so she couldn’t hear.

  She tried to read, struggling to concentrate on the words in front of her, but they swam about and refused to make sense. Her mind was bent on the situation downstairs, on the uncertainty of what had happened. Jasper, when she’d met him, had been a rich businessman on his way to sell tea to the village tea merchant. Grandpa had known him. There was no question he was wealthy enough to look after Tilly. And yet, the garden had been neglected since last autumn at least, and some rooms in the house had stood empty long enough for the dust to gather in drifts over the floorboards. She knew, too, that Grandpa had paid him a good sum of money upon their engagement, so that must have gone directly into debts as well. So how deep in financial trouble was he? And how could she find out when he refused to talk about his business with her?

  Footsteps outside and a frantic knock at her door. Without waiting for an invitation, Jasper burst in. His eyes glittered wildly. “Do you have anything else, Tilly? Anything? Jewelry? Money?”

  She hesitated. The banknotes. This is for you and nobody else. Maybe Grandpa had suspected Jasper was not all he seemed.

  “I have pearls,” Tilly said, going to her chest of drawers. “Grandpa gave them to me when I turned twenty-one. They used to belong to my mother.”

  “Pearls. Pearls would be good.”

  She retrieved the box from her top drawer, hesitating before handing them over.

  Jasper clicked his fingers. “Come now. There can be no sentiment where
money is concerned.” He leaned in close, whispered harshly in her ear. “I fear for my life.”

  Her heart spiked in alarm. “What?”

  “The Spaniard. I have owed him too much for too long. His patience has worn thin.” She saw his eyes flick to her wedding band.

  Tilly lightly slid her left hand behind her back. “I have a necklace of jet as well.”

  “Give it to me. Anything you have, give it to me and all our problems will go away.” He stalked to her wardrobe and threw it open, seized her favorite coat with its sable trim.

  “This might be worth something?” he asked.

  “I . . . take it. If you can get something for it . . . I have other coats.” She had to be reasonable. Saving the house would keep her warmer than saving the coat.

  And, with her jewels in his hands, he went downstairs to deal with the Spaniard. Tilly’s eyes went to the wardrobe where the cigar box was hidden. What wouldn’t he do? What would stop him from coming in here, whether she was in the room or not, and going through her drawers, her shelves, to look for something else to sell? Her dresses next? The precious inlaid writing box Grandpa had made her when she was a child? He would find the cigar box and he would take the banknotes.

  He said his life was in danger. She wrung her hands together, caught between wanting to keep him safe and not trusting him. Oh, the disappointed sadness. Not trusting him at all.

  Tilly knew what she must do.

  •

  This time she was glad when he went out for supper, for more business, to stay away from her bed one more night. When Miss Broussard left for the evening and Tilly was all alone again, she took a candle and the cigar box and headed to the gardener’s shed. The brisk sea wind extinguished her candle, but the moon was high and full enough to provide thin pale light. She unlocked the shed and found a box full of seeds. Emptied it, slid the cigar box in, then covered it again with seed packets. Pansies and sweet peas.

  A woman should have at least something in the world.

  Grandpa was very wise. Tilly would be wise, too, as long as she could.

  SEVEN

  Imagining Things

  Tilly woke late in the night, eyes blinking open in the dark. A sound. She was still getting used to the sounds here, so she listened carefully. Rattling panes, squally rain. No, it was more than that.

  Somebody was thumping on the front door.

  She threw back the covers then stood, bare feet on the floorboards, hesitating. If Jasper were home, should he not answer the door? There was no butler, so it had to be either one or the other of them.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  Tilly pulled on her dressing gown, and lit a candle with shaking hands. She stopped at Jasper’s door to knock sharply, but he didn’t answer.

  He wasn’t back? Then she was alone in the house. A rainstorm raged outside. It could be any desperate fellow, looking for shelter.

  Thump, thump, thump. “Tilly! Tilly!”

  The penny dropped. The desperate fellow out in the storm was her husband.

  She hurried down the stairs and pulled the latch. The door flew in, a gust of rainy cold behind it, and he landed in a heap on the doormat. Even by the dim candlelight, she could see his clothes were torn and there was blood on his face.

  “Jasper! Good Lord, what happened to you?” She closed the door and knelt, pushing his wet hair off his brow.

  “I’ve lost my keys,” he gasped. “I didn’t want you to see me like this.”

  “Come to the kitchen. I’ll boil water.” She helped him to his feet and he leaned heavily on her. She felt the full weight of his masculine body. His wet clothes pressed themselves on her dressing gown.

  In the kitchen she lit every candle she could find and lit the stove to boil water. While he waited, he breathed heavily, resting his elbows on the table in a deep slump.

  “Who did this to you?” she asked, while the water heated. But he didn’t answer, lost in some subterranean misery.

  When the water was boiled, she poured it into a pail and mixed it with cold water, then pulled up a chair in front of Jasper and gently lifted his chin to study his face carefully. He met her eyes darkly, sorrowfully. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  She dipped a flannel into the pail, squeezed off the excess, and began to sponge the blood from his face.

  “Who did this to you?” she asked again.

  “The Spaniard,” he replied, at length. “But it’s over now. I am finished with him. I owe nothing more.”

  “Then why did he hit you?” She could see now that some of the blood was from his nose and some from a jagged cut on his cheek, perhaps from being struck by a fist wearing a ring. She dabbed the wound gingerly and he winced.

  “Because I insulted him.” He smiled wryly. “It happens that the Spanish are easily insulted.”

  “Are you wounded anywhere else?”

  “I’m sore and stiff. It was quite a brawl. My knee isn’t carrying me properly.”

  “You’ll have to strip out of these wet clothes.”

  “Will you help me?” he asked. “I can barely stand.”

  And so she helped him, in the thin glow of the candlelight. Unbuttoning his vest and shirt and putting them carefully aside, then helping him lift his arms to pull off his undershirt and reveal his lean, muscular torso. Tilly’s blood warmed at the sight of him. Her fingers ached to trace the pattern of the hair across his chest. She had to remind herself that this was very serious business.

  “Come,” she said. “Up.”

  With a harsh sigh he stood, leaning on her, and unbuckled his own trousers and let them fall to the floor, so he stood only in his wool flannel drawers. It was immediately apparent that his knee had ballooned with angry swelling. He could take no weight on it.

  “My dear,” she said, “I will get you dry, but then you must go to bed and you must stay off that knee. I will call you a physician in the morning.”

  “No,” he said. “I cannot afford a physician.”

  “I thought you had cleared all your debts?”

  “Yes, and so I must incur no new ones.”

  “A physician, Jasper, may save you from becoming lame.” She thought of her money, stashed away from his eyes, and felt a stab of guilt so acute that she almost gasped.

  But he said nothing more about a physician. Goose bumps stood out on his skin, so Tilly slipped off her robe and put it about his shoulders. “Now, let me get you to bed.”

  Slowly, slowly, they made their way up the stairs. The candle made grim shadows of them on the wall. He grunted and gasped every time he had to bear himself on his injured knee, but finally they arrived at his bedroom. She opened the door and lit the candles from her own, then turned back his covers for him.

  “My drawers are wet,” he said. “I’ll need dry bedclothes.” He indicated the wardrobe. Tilly opened the doors. None of the clothes were hung, and nothing was folded. She had to sort through a pile of clothing to find drawers and an undershirt. How had it ever been possible that Jasper had given her the impression of somebody smartly dressed? Was it simply that without servants he had no capacity to mind his own clothing? When she turned back, he stood naked in front of her, his hands modestly crossed over his private parts. The sight was so profoundly arousing that she almost dropped the clothes she held. In the flickering candlelight, she could see the dark crown of his pubic hair. A searing, secret yearning to move his hands away and see all of him gripped her. With a shuddering breath she handed him the drawers and undershirt and he indicated she should turn around while he dressed. She did as he asked, disappointment cooling her skin.

  “Thank you, Tilly,” he said, when he was done.

  She turned to see he was in bed, lying flat on his back. “What do you need? What can I do for you?”

  “Nothing. Go to bed.”

  But there was no chance that she would do as he asked. It was wrong that they should sleep apart, especially tonight when he was injured and needed her comfort. “No. I will stay with you un
til morning.” Without waiting for his approval, she slid into the bed next to him, tucked her body against his.

  He braced himself, almost as if expecting another blow. “You should return to your own bedroom.”

  “Jasper, I want nothing of you. I want only to take care of you,” she said, puzzled and hurt. “I am your wife. My proper place is by your side.”

  “I’m sorry, my dear,” he sighed. “This evening has been . . . difficult. I mean to sleep now for a good long time.”

  “I will sleep next to you and be here for you should you need me.” She kissed his cheek and took his hand in her own. Ah, the bliss of finally lying by his side, only their thin nightclothes separating them. Finally falling asleep in Jasper’s bed, just as she had imagined it would be.

  Or rather, almost as she had imagined it would be.

  •

  The swelling on Jasper’s knee had almost gone by the morning, but Tilly cautioned him to stay in bed and delighted in running up and down the stairs with food and tea for him before Mrs. Rivard arrived for the day. Pale bruises were appearing on his face and shoulders, and Tilly didn’t dare think about the intensity of rage and violence that had been directed towards him. The world of men seemed such a frightening, exposed place. For once, she was glad her life was sheltered by the comforts of a home and hearth.

  With Mrs. Rivard’s arrival, she was banished from the staircase. Tilly spent the day in the library. No system of organizing the books had ever been employed, so she had the delight of running her hands along spines, occasionally finding unexpected gems—a first edition of Pepys, a leather-bound, illustrated Faerie Queene—and slowly rearranging the books so they made sense. She made piles on the floor, sneezing on dust, readying them to be packed into crates and shipped to Scotland. By nightfall she had created a section for the Greeks, another for the Romans, another for Chaucer, another for Arthurian stories, and hoped to make a Shakespeare section next time she had some hours free. It pained her to think they wouldn’t be keeping this marvelous collection of books, but at least she had several months to browse through them.