Burke was tall and thin with a pockmarked face, thin, mean lips, and eyes so dark brown they seemed black. His pewter-gray hair was clipped very short, covering his skull like a tight cap, and I had never seen him in anything but the old black suit that fit his scarecrow-thin body like a second skin. Burke ran the house with the harsh efficiency of a tyrant, cruelly bullying the other servants, sullen youths who had been pressed into service as footmen, a fat harridan from the town who wore a black dress, drank endless glasses of rum, and held the title of housekeeper. The cook was from France, a superb chef who had murdered a family in Paris with his butcher knife. Fleeing the authorities, he had eventually ended up in Red Nick’s service and spent most of his time brooding over his pots and pans in the kitchen and, between curses, creating elegant and superbly delicious meals.
Burke hated me. His thin lips compressed into a hard, tight line whenever I happened to encounter him, his dark eyes glowing with animosity, glowing like coals. Fiercely loyal to Red Nick, he resented my presence, resented the hold he felt I had over his master. I knew that he had made life hell for the unfortunate Maria, spying on her, reporting on her movements to Lyon and frequently stirring up trouble. He tried to make life hell for me, too, but I refused to be baited, treating him with cool hauteur when it was necessary for me to speak to him and ignoring him the rest of the time. Corrie lived in terror of Burke, and I had to admit that I was terrified, too, now that I was engaged in highly dangerous activity. If Burke had the least suspicion of what was going on, all would be lost.
The doors to the servants’ dining hall were open. I paused, listening once more, then quickly moved past them and past the kitchen, opening the small door that led to the storage room and wine cellar below. I closed the door behind me and moved down the wide stone steps. The air was cool and clammy, smelling of damp and cork and onions. It was very dim, but I didn’t dare light the torches that stood in iron rings along the wall. There was just enough light to see by, and I knew my way around quite well. I had been down here several times during the past week, each time on the sly, usually late at night with a candle that I could snuff out immediately if someone opened the door above the stairs. Passing the great wooden barrels of rum and the tall racks containing dusty bottles of the finest wine, I stepped into the enormous storeroom where food was kept, bins of flour, sugar, and tea, containers of salt and spices, fruit and nuts and beans and corn.
I had smuggled out apples and oranges and a large cotton sack full of hard parched corn, and I had also returned to my room with three fairly large empty tin containers which, now filled with water, sat in the boat with lids firmly in place. Em and I had worked out an ingenious way to get things out of the stockade. Behind the garden a narrow flight of white stone steps led up to the walkway that ran around the top of the high walls. Slipping up the steps at night, long after everyone was asleep and Cleeve had returned to the barracks, we lowered the bags of food and the containers to the ground on the other side of the wall with ropes and, the next morning, after we had sauntered out the great oak doors for our morning walks, fetched them and carried them to the boat, keeping behind trees and shrubberies to avoid possible detection.
We had fruit and parched corn and an enormous bag of nuts which were quite nutritious, but we needed some kind of meat as well. We might be on the boat for days, Em pointed out, rowing constantly, and we were going to need all the strength we could get. Finding a nonperishable meat had presented a problem. Strolling casually into the kitchen this morning, I had complimented Pierre on last night’s meal, delicate pieces of beef cooked in a thick, creamy white wine sauce and baked in a pastry shell. Idly, I had asked him where he had gotten the meat. The fish and fowl, I knew, came from town, but no cattle were raised on the island. Scowling moodily at the intrusion, he had continued to polish a copper pot and muttered something about a supply of beef in the storage room. Surely it would spoil, I remarked, and he sullenly informed me that the beef was dried in hard chunks. Soaked in water or, preferably, wine, and cooked thoroughly, it was quite as savory as fresh. Having acquired the information I was seeking, I complimented him again, smiled politely, and went on up to the sitting room to give Corrie her lessons.
And now, in the dim, shadowy storage room with its damp walls and the floor strewn with sawdust, I searched for the dried beef, which I had not spied on any of my other trips down here. I prowled among the shelves, pushing aside boxes and canisters, looking behind bins, wondering where it could possibly be. The smell of clove and cinnamon and pepper was heady, blending with the smell of sawdust and damp stone. Strings of onions hung from the ceiling, and a huge barrel brimmed over with coffee beans. There was another barrel beside it, the lid tightly sealed. I pried at the lid, finally loosening it, and when I removed it I saw the chunks of beef, each individually wrapped in thin white oilcloth. I took a chunk out and examined it, smiling as I realized this was exactly what we needed.
As I was contemplating how to get it upstairs without being detected, there was a sound from above. I froze. The door creaked as someone cautiously opened it, quietly closed it. Stealthy footsteps sounded on the stairs. My heart seemed to leap into my throat, and then it seemed to stop beating altogether. I looked around frantically for some place to hide, darting quickly behind an enormous bin and huddling down as the footsteps moved past the racks of wine and entered the storage room. It was Burke. It had to be. He hadn’t gone down to the canteen after all. He had stayed behind to spy on me, hoping to catch me out in something, and he had seen me come down here and everything was lost, everything. I closed my eyes, praying he wouldn’t look behind the bin.
“Miz Marietta?”
Relief flooded over me. I stood up abruptly, so abruptly that Corrie gave a loud gasp, frightened half out of her wits. She was clutching two large pieces of cloth, and she was trembling visibly.
“Corrie! Thank God it’s you. You—you scared the life out of me!”
“You done scared me, too,” she said in a trembly voice. “I thought you was some kind of ghost, jumping up like that. I don’t like this place at all. It’s spooky, Miz Marietta.”
“Why are you here?”
“I seen you—I saw you going down the hall. I was in my room and heard a noise and looked out and saw you sneaking through the door. I knew you was coming to look for the beef that French cook told you about, and I figured you might need some help so I made sure no one was about and sneaked down too.”
“What’s that you have in your hands?”
“Well, after our lessons this morning I figured it might not be too easy to get them chunks of beef back up without no one seeing, so I thought on it for a while and decided what we needed was some big pockets. I took these aprons and made great big pockets on ’em and, see, we can put the beef in the pockets, tie the aprons on under our skirts, and march right past anyone pretty as you please without ’em being any the wiser.”
“Corrie, you’re a wonder!”
“You and Miss Em has been taking all the chances,” she informed me, “and I’ve been feeling guilty about it. I figured it was time I helped some, too.”
She smiled shyly, and I gave her a tight hug.
“I’d just as soon get out of this spooky place soon as we can,” she said, glancing apprehensively around the room. “Let’s just fill up these pockets and tie the aprons on quick as we can.”
I nodded in agreement, and in less than five minutes we had the pockets of the aprons bulging with chunks of beef, the aprons tied on under our skirts and completely concealed. I frowned, staring at the half-empty barrel.
“If Pierre comes down to fetch more beef during the next day or so, he’ll be certain to notice a lot of it is missing,” I said. “He’ll start asking questions.”
Corrie tilted her head to one side, thinking hard, and then she smiled and tipped the barrel over, emptying all the remaining beef onto the floor, setting the barrel back up. As I watched, she began to fill the bottom of it with apples from one of the bins. Wondering
why I hadn’t thought of so simple a solution, I helped her, and when we had enough apples in the bottom, we put the beef on top of it. When we had finished, the barrel seemed to be as full of beef as it had been before.
“Where we going to hide all this meat we got?” she asked.
“We’ll take it up to my bedroom and put it under the bed until tonight,” I said, “and then Em and I will drop it over the wall after everyone else has gone to sleep.”
We moved back through the wine cellar, walking rather awkwardly because of the heavily laden aprons tied about our waists under our skirts. Corrie’s pale lime green cotton skirt looked much fuller than it had been when she came down, but not too obviously so. The chunks of beef slapped against my legs as I went up the steps. I was exhausted, but I felt a great sense of triumph as we opened the door and stepped back into the hall. We had all the food we needed now, water as well. All we lacked were guns and ammunition, and Em was busily figuring out a way to acquire them.
I closed the door behind me and turned to Corrie with a smile. The smile died on my lips when I saw her face. Her lips were parted. Her eyes were wide with terror. I heard footsteps and turned to see Burke moving purposefully down the hall toward us.
“Relax, Corrie!” I whispered urgently. “Don’t let him see you’re afraid. Don’t let him suspect we have anything to hide!”
“May I ask what you’re doing?” Burke growled.
“You may,” I replied coldly, “but I’m not certain you’ll receive an answer. I don’t care for your tone, Burke.”
“What were you doing down there!”
I gazed at him with haughty disdain, the mistress of the house confronting an impudent servant. Burke stood his ground, tall and sinister in his old black suit, his pock-marked face tight with suspicion. The black-brown eyes glowered at me with fierce animosity, and I was so nervous I thought my knees might give way, but somehow I managed to maintain my hauteur.
“I went down to inspect the wines,” I said in a voice like ice. “Nicholas will be returning any day now, and I want to have something special for his return. I intend to confer with Pierre about the meal, too. You object?”
“You have no business down there!”
“I happen to be mistress of the house, Burke. I’ll thank you to keep that in mind.”
Burke glared at me, longing to vent his hostility in a spew of venomous insults, but he didn’t quite dare, not at this point. Instead, he turned to Corrie, his mouth tightening into a thin, vicious line. Pewter-gray hair covering his skull in short-clipped locks, heavy, dark brows lowered menacingly, he took a step toward her.
“What are you doing here, nigger!”
Corrie moved back, utterly terrified and unable to conceal it. “I—I’se with Miz Marietta—” she stammered.
“What are you hiding? You’re hiding something, I can tell. You steal something while you were down there?”
“How dare you!” I cried.
Burke paid no attention to me. “Come here, nigger! Several bottles of wine have disappeared lately. You got a bottle under your skirt? You been sneaking down there and stealing it, haven’t you!”
Corrie backed against the wall, shaking her head back and forth, tears of terror welling in her eyes. Burke snarled and started to seize her arm, and it was then that I slammed my palm across his face, slapping him so hard that his head snapped back. He was stunned, as, indeed, I was myself. I had acted instinctively, without thinking, and as his pock-marked cheek burned bright pink I drew myself up and gazed at him with cool sapphire eyes.
“Don’t you ever make such an accusation again, Burke,” I said. “Corrie is my servant, not under your supervision at all. If the wine is missing, I suggest you question the housekeeper. More than likely she ran out of rum.”
“You’re going to be sorry for that,” he promised. His voice was a guttural rasp.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’re worse than the last one. She put on airs, too, thought she was better ’n anyone else, thought she had him wrapped around her little finger, yeah, but she got hers. You’ll get yours, too.”
“Would you care to repeat those words when Red Nick returns?”
Burke made no reply. He had gone too far, he knew that, but he longed to go farther still. Had he dared, he would have torn into me with both fists, beating me to a pulp with the greatest satisfaction. For a moment, as he stood there rubbing his cheek, I thought he might actually do so, and I braced myself for the assault, determined to fight like a tigress. He hesitated, dark eyes glittering. Then he muttered a curse and turned and went back down the hall. I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Come along, Corrie,” I said.
She was still frightened, too frightened to speak. She shook her head again and brushed the tears from her cheeks, making a valiant effort to pull herself together. I took her hand and squeezed it, and after a moment or so she managed a feeble smile. I was still shaken myself by the close call. My palm stung. Burke had been hostile to me from the beginning, but now he had become an extremely dangerous enemy. We were going to have to be even more careful.
“Are you all right now?” I asked.
Corrie nodded. “I—I wasn’t going to let him look under my skirt, Miz Marietta. I was going to kick him hard.”
“He didn’t find out anything, Corrie. That’s all that matters.”
“He’s going to have his eye on us.”
“I know. We’ll worry about that later. Now we’d better get up to the bedroom and hide this beef. It’s terribly heavy.”
We went upstairs and removed the aprons and I pushed them under the bed and sat down wearily. I was still weary that afternoon when I met Em on the lawn in front of Tremayne’s cottage. Cleeve and several of the men were milling around in front of the barracks, idly watching us as we strolled past the flower beds and fountains. Em had washed her hair during the morning. It tumbled about her shoulders in lustrous chestnut waves that gleamed in the sunlight with rich highlights. She was wearing a poppy-red silk frock with full skirt, puffed sleeves that fell off the shoulders, and a bodice cut provocatively low. Her hazel eyes were grave as I told her about the beef and our encounter with Burke.
“Jesus, luv,” she said, “you must have been petrified.”
“I was. Poor Corrie almost fainted.”
“Is he suspicious?”
“He’s suspicious by nature,” I told her. “I don’t think he suspects what we’ve been up to, but he’s going to be watching me very closely, Em. I’ve no doubt he’s behind one of the windows, watching right now.”
“No need to panic, luv. In a couple of days we should be long gone.”
“A couple of days? But—”
“You’ve managed beautifully about the food, and with that dried beef added to what we already have we should be able to make it fine. We’ve got the water, too—lugging those containers down the slope and into the cave was the hardest thing we’ve done. I’d no idea water was so heavy.”
“The guns, Em.”
“I’m getting to that. You said you’d take care of the food, and I said I’d take care of the guns, and I’ve been working on it. Michael doesn’t keep any weapons in the cottage and you said you couldn’t find any in the big house either, so I got to thinking and asked myself what would happen if there was an attack or something.”
Em paused. I waited patiently. She smiled.
“The barracks, luv. There’s an armory in the barracks, right off the sleeping quarters. I got Cleeve to show it to me this morning while you were filling up barrels with apples and smuggling beef past Burke. I said I’d dearly love to see his quarters. He asked why, and I said I was interested in anything having to do with him. He was quite flattered.”
“He showed you the barracks?”
“Every inch of it. The men were delighted, made all sorts of rowdy comments as I passed through—most of ’em know Cleeve’s meeting me every night, the idiot had to brag about it. Men! They’re his mates, tho
ugh, and none of them have any great love for Tremayne so there’s no danger there.”
“I wish you would get to the point, Em.”
“The armory is right off the sleeping quarters, like I told you, and it’s crammed with muskets and pistols and powder horns and boxes of bullets, swords and things, too. Here’s the best part, luv—there’s a side door that opens onto the yard. The steps leading up to the walkway in front are right outside, you see, so if there’s an attack or something a chap could pop down the stairs and pop into the armory for more ammunition or what have you without having to go through the sleeping quarters. Clever.”
“I assume the door is locked.”
Em smiled again, an impish light in her eyes. “Not any longer, luv. While Cleeve was laboriously explaining how you load a musket I sauntered over and unlocked it.”
“I see. You’re going to slip into the armory tonight.”
“We’re going to slip in, luv.”
“With all those men sleeping only a few yards away? It’s far too dangerous, Em.”
“They’re not going to be sleeping,” she informed me. “They’re going to be watching a fight.”
“How are you going to arrange that?” I asked dryly.
“Easy,” Em said.
She explained everything to me in great detail. I was exceedingly apprehensive, not at all convinced her plan would work, but, nevertheless, I strolled back out into the courtyard that evening. The sky was a dark blue-black sprinkled with frosty stars, and there was far too much moonlight, the lawns frosted with silver and spread with shadows. I kept to the shadows, moving slowly toward the big tree that stood beside the last cottage on the right. Light spilled out of the windows of the barracks. There was hearty laughter and the sounds of scuffling. Stationing myself under the tree, I waited, and soon I saw Em ambling along in the moonlight. She paused beside one of the fountains. A few minutes later a man joined her.
Not much taller than she was, with a stocky, muscular build and extremely broad shoulders, he strode purposefully over to the fountain and stood in front of her with his legs spread, his fists planted on his thighs, his stance that of a rough pugilist spoiling for a fight. I recognized him immediately, Grimmet, the black-haired brute who, with Cleeve, had accompanied us on our walks those first two days.
Love Me, Marietta Page 24
