“After I eat,” I said. “And I suppose we will have to find a place for her to sleep that will not compromise anyone.”
In thinking of not roving, I felt some relief myself. Perhaps we could return to Negril. But then I realized Gaston would not wish to leave the baby in town, and Vivian did need watching. I tried to picture the four of us living in our hovel on the Point, and dark clouds of foreboding hovered on the horizon as I began to see how the Gods might find some amusement in that.
Sixty-Four
Wherein We Are Nearly Outmaneuvered
Christine needed no prompting to follow us to the stable after dinner. And so, after Bella decided she was acceptable, we sat about in the straw in the front part of the structure where the dogs were, each of us with a back to a different wall: our guest closest to the door, and Gaston closest to the puppies. Christine seemed to have little interest in the puppies themselves – a thing I found odd – and she eyed our hammock in the stall with curiosity, only to quickly look elsewhere.
“So, what might we do for you?” I asked Christine in French.
She took a deep breath and her gaze traveled from one of us to the other. Gaston was regarding the puppy in his lap: she spoke to me. “I am here to discover what prompted the Marquis’ visit to my father, or rather the message that he brought. Has Gaston rejected me, or has his father found me unsuitable?”
“I cannot give you an easy answer,” I said. “You were not rejected, so much as a speedy marriage was. A situation you should well be able to sympathize with.”
Her eyes hardened and she quickly turned to studying the straw. “I rue that day,” she said with guilt that seemed sincere. “I made a mistake, I admit it. I should have accepted your gracious offer and… saved us all a great deal of trouble.”
“Perhaps,” I said quickly. Though I did not wish for her to berate herself, I could never tell her I would not have married her anyway. “But what is done, is done. We are not here to discuss the past, but the future. What do you want now?”
“I wish to be married to… a man who would offer me the freedoms you did.” She regarded me from beneath her lashes in a shy fashion, and I sensed earnestness but not coyness.
“To be married?” I asked carefully. “Why not simply escape your father again and travel in your current guise?”
She sighed. “If need be, I would do so again; but I would rather not be sought; and if I am to be exposed by some folly, I would rather have them attempt to return me to someone sympathetic to my aims and not my father,” she said with frustration.
“I can see that,” I said, and glanced at Gaston. He appeared to be ignoring us: a thing I found frustration with, as I wished for some subtle indication of his thoughts. I supposed his wishing to ignore her was indication enough.
“If the matter were as simple as your being provided with a name in marriage so that you might be free, we would possibly be happy to oblige,” I said carefully. “But we have need of the name Gaston can offer; or rather we have need of a bride. Gaston wishes to produce heirs, and children must be the first priority in the application of his availability for marriage.”
She nodded tightly and fidgeted with the straw. “I surmised that: now that he is a lord.” She took a deep breath and raised her head to meet my gaze again. “I am willing to bear children.”
I dearly wished to say, the Devil you are, but I held it in. “Well, he would need several children, preferably male, of course.”
She shrugged with feigned nonchalance. “We are young: we can produce the necessary heirs and then travel: the three of us.”
“The three of us?” I queried.
“Oui,” she said with a knowing smile. “Do not members of the Brethren share all things, including wives?”
I glanced to Gaston, and found him regarding her with dismay. She did not see it: her eyes were only for me.
I awarded her a diplomatic smile. “Some do. But, that is not the matter of concern at the moment. I do not see where we will be able to travel once the children are born. I think children, even the one we have now, will likely be the end of our travels.”
“Why?” she asked, with a mix of incredulity and curiosity.
“Because we wish to raise them,” I said.
Now she was fully incredulous. “Why?”
I thought I would have sounded the same quite recently, but I found my answer ready and reasoned. “To insure it is done properly, and they are treated with respect and care, and they are taught ethics and morals we value.”
She slumped dejectedly against the wall, her face contorted with a perplexed frown that was quite cute.
I glanced at Gaston and found him regarding me with pride and pleasure; and that expression was a thousand times more endearing than anything the girl could ever muster.
I turned back to Christine. “We will give you what assistance we can: secure passage for you and even give you some money, but…”
“Non,” she said quickly. “What if it is as we originally discussed, when… What if we marry; and I produce the children; and then I can travel, as a lord’s wife who will not be considered missing; and you can raise the children? Do you find me an unsuitable mother?”
Gaston was studying the puppy in his lap again, but this time I could see tension and agitation in the set of his head and shoulders and the careful precision with which he smoothed fur with one fingertip.
“Non,” I told Christine. “We have long thought you would be an excellent dam: you possess many qualities we would see in children. And perhaps that arrangement would be suitable, but we must discuss the matter.”
She smiled at me warmly: a fetching and triumphant quirk of her lips.
“But… it would not be as some of the Brethren do,” I said slowly, and let my tone harden. “You would be Gaston’s wife and bear his children only.”
She raised an eyebrow at that, and spoke coyly. “There are ways to insure that only his seed is sown.”
My smile was diplomatic and perhaps patronizing. “Aye, and my never laying a hand on you is the easiest of those. My matelot does not share.”
Gaston sat the puppy carefully aside.
“Not even with you?” Christine teased, oblivious to him.
“He does not share me,” I said with an amused grin, some cruel aspect of my spirit relishing the shattering of her girlish fancy.
“Oui, you cannot have him,” Gaston growled.
Christine’s coy smile fled and she turned to look at him with surprise. He was a forbidding statue in the shadows, with hard green eyes. She took a short hard breath, and fear and shame set upon her face.
“So,” I said lightly, as if we were discussing the sale of a horse. “I do not believe we can achieve the arrangement you desire. We will still offer you what aid we might.”
Anger suffused her. “Do not trouble yourself!” She stood and snatched up her bag and slipped into the night.
“Well, we have made an enemy this night,” I said, still feeling triumphant.
He pounced upon me, his mouth hard on mine as he bowled me over and then onto my back: his hands closed tight around my wrists, pinning them on either side of my head as he straddled me. I did not kick about because I was scared I would hit the nest of puppies.
He brushed teasing kisses across my lips, only to pull his head away as I strained to reach him. My manhood began to strain as well, trapped as it was between us.
“You are mine,” he hissed.
“Am I to be ridden this night?” I panted.
His eyes brightened and he made the happy humming sound: only in his present Horse state, it became more akin to a purr.
“Oui, let us see how very far my stallion can run,” he said huskily. “Farther than any damn mare, I would think.”
I chuckled at his entwining of his father’s metaphor with ours, until he kissed me such that I ached with need and could not remember humor or metaphors or much of the last day.
“Strip and get on the hammock,” he whispered a
s he released me. “There is a thing I would try.”
I gleefully complied: my skin afire and my cock throbbing with anticipation. He left me for a time, slipping out into the atrium. I hoped he was insuring that we were alone and I could at least make some noise once he began whatever tortures he wished to employ. He returned with several candles, and lit them from the lamp before blowing it out. I grinned up at him as he regarded me in their softly flickering light, my smile widening at the sight of his feral one.
He shed his clothing, and dug salve, rope, and our gag out of our bags. He bound my wrists and ankles to the four corners of our hammock, and turned to greasing our members. He made coy work of his: taking pleasure in my enjoyment of the sight. I nearly spent myself when he finally took me in hand. He tapped my balls to distract me, and I moaned and twisted in my bonds, my cock cringing from the sudden pain. Then he was astride me, positioning my cock beneath him such that my squirming would bring him pleasure. Then he awarded me a deep and sweet kiss to savor before placing the gag in my mouth.
I squirmed with surprise and the first icy tickle of fear when he picked up one of the candles. And then there was only the inextricable blend of pain and pleasure as he spilled wax upon my arms and chest in little dribbles. It did not bring the deep immediate ache of a strap, or the hard pain of his teeth, but an initial shock of a burn followed by an irritating and mounting discomfort. I did not buck beneath him, I began to run in a sort of rhythmic squirming that he found great delight in as he kept me at it for a seeming eternity, until I felt I could no longer move and I could feel nothing but the burning upon my chest.
I was surprised to find my cock still hard when he at last set the candle aside and moved to impale himself upon me. His hole seemed cold and deep compared to the fire on my skin, and I mustered all the strength I had left to dive deep up into him. He gave a long low groan of pleasure and held me still with one commanding hand upon my chest. Then he began to move, and I did nothing but lie beneath him and accept his pleasure until I came. I did not feel I laid siege to the Gates of Heaven, so much as they opened for me without effort and I was washed on a wave into the light with little fanfare and great peace. I was barely aware of him bringing himself off to squirt cold jism upon my chest.
He released me very tenderly, rubbing my numb limbs and kissing me before rolling me onto my side. I was roused from my blissful lassitude when he tried to pull the wax from my skin. It was a new and irritating pain. He stopped, and I drifted again until he pushed a cup to my lips. I drank, tasting the laudanum and not caring. And then I was very far away and warm and happy, and I knew he was beside me and always would be.
I woke alone, a thin blanket covering my nakedness, and someone hissing my name.
Memory returned slowly, and I smiled at the ache in my body. My chest was mottled pink with burns, but there was no wax. I was missing the sparse hair that had covered it, though. I even found quiet amusement in that.
“What?” I asked. I was sure the voice was Agnes.
“You must come quickly!” she hissed from somewhere beyond the door. “There is trouble! Gaston sent me to fetch you!”
I pushed myself upright and awake, and sought my clothes. “What trouble?”
“Sir Christopher is here.” She paused and there were sounds of commotion from the atrium, including a women’s voice yelling and cursing. “Oh damn! They found her. She must have tried to climb off the balcony. The idiot!”
I had donned my breeches and tunic, and I hurried past her. The atrium seemed filled with people. The Marquis and Dupree stood to one side, with Pete, Striker, and Rucker. Across from them stood Sir Christopher, Governor Modyford, and Theodore. Two men held a furious and struggling Christine between them in the foyer. She was still in her boy’s garb, but with her hair a cascade of unbound gold. I could see Gaston in the shadows of the door to the parlor, and Sarah likewise hiding in the doorway of her office.
Fear roiled in my belly, and excitement burned the drug from my body, but not my head. I felt quite disoriented, as if I had suddenly been transported to another time or place. I had woken to such scenes before: whether they were of my orchestration or not, they always ended in either someone dying or my running away in the night, or both.
Pete was laughing; Striker was regarding Christine incredulously; the Marquis awarded me a resigned sigh and roll of his eyes as if to say, now see what having her here has done; Rucker was, as ever, quite curious as to what would occur, as if this were all some entertainment staged just for him; Theodore appeared quite concerned; Sarah did not appear surprised so much as angry – at me; and Modyford gave me a sly smile. My greatest concern, Gaston, looked as if he were ready to fight or flee if I should but give the word.
“There you are, you brigand!” Sir Christopher shouted at the sight of me.
“What is this about?” I asked with bravado as I crossed the atrium.
“You have trifled with my daughter’s affections and brought her to ruin!” Sir Christopher railed.
“He has not!” Christine roared. “And I am not ruined! How dare you! Summon another damn midwife if you must be sure, but do not speak that way of me.”
Her father colored and snapped, “You be quiet! This does not concern you!”
“What?” she yelled.
“If you will not be silent I will have them take you outside,” Sir Christopher said.
“So they can make lurid comments and ogle me as they have already?” she roared. “You are the one bringing me to ruin, Father! You are the one casting aspersions on my character!”
This seemed to flummox him, and he stood indecisive for a moment, his mouth opening and closing, and then he crossed the distance between them and slapped her quite smartly.
That was enough for my matelot. He stepped from the doorway and downed one of the men holding Christine with two quick blows, and moved to step between her and her father. Then Gaston had her safely behind him, and her father and his other man were backing away.
Christine touched her cheek gingerly, and regarded her father with angry eyes filling with sudden tears. He, in turn, seemed suffused with guilt over what he had done, and oddly, turned to seek Modyford’s support.
“My Lord,” Modyford said smoothly to me. “I must ask: have you had carnal knowledge of the young lady?”
“Nay, I have not,” I said firmly.
“Who will believe that?” Sir Christopher bellowed.
I knew he was correct. “Quite possibly no one, sir. So the matter must rest between me and the Lord.”
“That may be,” he rumbled, seeming to be coming to a boil again. “But what am I to do with a ruined daughter?”
“I do not know, Sir Christopher. What would you have of me?” I asked, sincerely curious as to what he sought. Most fathers in his presumed circumstance kept the matter as private as possible and quietly found someone to marry the girl. They did not show up at a married man’s house – with the governor – and make demands. Something was amiss. I tried to push the remaining fog of the drug from my head and think.
“I wish for you to make her an honorable woman,” Sir Christopher said.
“Sir,” I said with incredulity, “I am a married man. What do you suggest?”
“Bah,” he said. “Everyone knows your marriage to that trollop is a fraud.”
“Do they?” I asked with amazement at his audacity. “We were legally married in the eyes of God and man, sir. She has borne me a child.”
“It is not yours,” he said, but there was fear in his eyes, as if he was amazed at what he spoke.
And then I caught his eyes flicking to the governor again.
A hand closed on my shoulder, grinding the rough fabric of my tunic into my burned skin. I looked, and saw the Marquis’ signet ring on that hand, his blue eyes quite somber above it.
He whispered in French, “They are plotting something.”
“I know, I know,” I murmured.
Sir Christopher seemed even more uncom
fortable now that the Marquis had made his presence obvious. Modyford watched us with speculative eyes.
“Who stands to gain from your marriage being annulled?” the Marquis asked.
“Vines, if I pay him a dowry, but he is quite wealthy.”
I looked to Gaston: he was whispering earnestly to Christine. Her face was a mask of anger, but she was responding with tight little nods.
My gut clenched. I knew what those two might be plotting: it was a way out of this thicket, one which we did not wish to take, but it would see us through. I had to ignore them for the moment, and tackle the real question of how we got here.
“Does Vines have such influence with your governor?” the voice of reason at my shoulder asked.
I looked to Theodore. He shook his head subtly, almost as if he answered the Marquis’ question for me, though he could hear none of what we said. His eyes told me he did not know what this was about.
“I think not,” I murmured. “But Modyford may well have enough influence over him to arrange this… show.” And that was what I had been seeing: Sir Christopher was playing a part.
“Who would exercise such influence on the governor?” the Marquis asked. “Surely not her mother’s family. Despite her uncle, she holds too little value for anyone to care.”
And then I knew. I gasped at the surprise of it. “My father,” I hissed.
“Ah,” the Marquis said, as if the matter were now resolved and he was pleased there was some order to it after all. “It must not be politically expedient for him to tell you to put her out.”
I was nauseated with the implications of my father conniving with Modyford.
Sir Christopher had been conferring with the governor, and now he squared his shoulders and turned on me with feigned outrage again. “What is your answer, sir? Will you do the honorable thing?”
“I will remain honorably married to my wife,” I said.
“I will marry your daughter,” Gaston said.
My gut twisted as if it would leave my body.
“What?” Sir Christopher sputtered. “That is…” He glanced at Modyford, who frowned.
Treasure Page 29
