She was gazing intently at him. “I remember you are scarred,” she said “I think I remember that from the birth.”
He nodded.
She looked to me, her tone curious. “But I have seen no scars on you.”
“I was raped and beaten by my cousin,” I said with an ease that surprised me. “That is why I left my father’s home when I was your age.”
She winced and looked away quickly. Then she frowned. “Shane?”
I sighed. “Aye.”
“He hates you,” she said quietly.
I frowned, and then I recalled she said she knew him. “What did he say?”
“That you were a sodomite,” she said with a shrug of embarrassment. “He reviles you for it.”
“Because I can admit what I am and he cannot,” I said with contempt.
She began to nod, and stopped to shake her head and speak with surety. “Nay, because you will inherit and he will not.” She looked up at me with a perplexed frown. “I am thinking of all that was said this morning, about your father and…”
“Did you ever speak to my father?” I asked.
“Nay, well, aye, but as a formal introduction. He had to see what his money had purchased,” she said bitterly. “We did not speak. And my father…” She sighed. “He did not speak with me, either. Shane spoke with me. He wished to seduce me.”
Gaston swore.
“Nay! Nay!” she said quickly. “I am not that big a fool! He was drunk. We were drunk. There were others present, though. He led me to a corner and whispered of it. He said you would never do me justice; that I was wasted upon you. He even said you would never get me with child, and I might as well see to the matter myself where I could, as you would not challenge it if you were smart.” She shook her head with guilt and embarrassment. “Even as drunk as I was… I knew he did not want me, and it made me angry. He merely wanted to ruin me before I was sent to you.”
Anger and bemusement rose within me that he should still be such a damn fool, and then it exploded as the true import of some of her words came to roost. “He did not think I would challenge an illegitimate birth if I were smart?” I growled.
Her eyes went wide with horror at what she found in mine. She grasped at me and I thought she might kneel. I grabbed her shoulders to keep her from sinking, and it was only with great effort I kept myself from shaking her. Over her shoulder, I saw murder to match my own in Gaston’s eyes.
“I am sorry!” she wailed. “I did not mean... You have been so good… I am sorry. I did not do it because of him. I did not know there was bad blood between you. I did not know. I did not know. I did not believe you would… I thought maybe if I had a boy, then… But…”
Though the street was not crowded, people were stopping to stare. I pulled her to my chest and put a hand over her mouth. I was gripped by such a rage I wished to strangle her, but a small and clear voice whispered that it was truly not her fault.
Gaston took me by the shoulder and began to tow us home with great purpose. Her panicked protestations stopped and she walked between us sobbing. When we were at last safely within the foyer, Gaston hissed, “Stable!” and pushed me away. I numbly did as he bid. I hoped he would not kill her, but I knew I would not lift a hand to stop him.
I collapsed on our hammock, shaking with rage made all the more painful by its impotence. I wanted to kill Shane. How could he still harbor so much hatred of me? And for my birth as opposed to his? For my inheritance, not for all that had passed between us, not for all the love and pain and blood. Nay, because I was something I could not help and could not change, and he was something else. All that had occurred must be viewed through that lens, no matter how warped or cracked. Everything over which I had felt pain was meaningless. He had never loved me. He had never been my friend. I had been a deluded and lonely little boy. I was a fool. I should have killed him. I should not have let him scar me as he had, so deeply upon my heart that nothing would ever remove it, nothing could ever heal it.
I did not struggle when Gaston joined me on the hammock and held me so tightly my skin burned and my bones creaked. I knew it was he. Even in the state I was in, where I could see or feel nothing but pain, I knew he was there and he loved me. I clung to him.
Sometime later it was dark, and there was a light rapping on the doorframe. As if I listened through a fog, I heard Gaston say, “Come in; there has been a revelation, and Will is quite distraught.”
“A revelation?” Theodore asked from near the hammock.
“Aye,” Gaston sighed, “from the Damn Wife concerning the Damn Cousin. She spoke to him before she left England, and she has corresponded with him since.”
“Oh Lord,” Theodore said.
Having not known this last, I decided I would not yet be coaxed from the safe burrow of having my face buried in Gaston’s shoulder. However, I did ask, “Does she live?” in French.
My matelot snorted, and spoke English for Theodore’s benefit. “Aye. She is sincerely contrite. She did not know… who her enemies were.” He sighed. “I have chained her in the parlor again. I did not want her sneaking out to wander the streets for rum, or harming herself. I judge her to be distraught enough to do either.”
“Well, we would not want that,” Theodore said sadly.
I felt Gaston shake his head. “She received a letter from the Damn Cousin through a man named Washington, and she sent her reply through him. Do you know of him?”
Theodore sighed. “Aye. He is a freight agent. He is a quiet sort, and respected for his discretion. Will’s father, or his damn cousin, has chosen wisely.” He sounded resigned and sad. “Might I ask the nature of this correspondence, or is that a subject best left for another time?”
“Will and I have not discussed it yet,” Gaston said.
I shrugged, and he rubbed my back.
“Before she left England,” Gaston said with little emotion, “the Damn Cousin sought to seduce her, and even suggested she should get with child because Will would not be up to the task. He told her that Will would not challenge any child she produced if he was smart. After she arrived here, she did as he suggested, not because he suggested it, but because she wished to be done with the matter of producing heirs as quickly as possible, and… she was very angry at the men in her life, and drunk, and thus lacking in judgment, of course. She received a letter from the Damn Cousin after her arrival. He appears to have been seeking information. She, being drunk and foolish and angry with Will, wrote him back and told him all she knew about us. She swears she did not tell him the child was illegitimate. She claims that, even inebriated, she was not that stupid.”
“She did tell him she was with child, though?” Theodore asked.
“Aye,” Gaston said.
“What could she have known to tell him, or rather, them, I wonder?” Theodore asked. “Unless Will spoke to her a great deal…”
I felt his gaze upon me, but I did not respond.
“I cannot see where she would have much to say,” Theodore continued. “Apparently they had already established another agent to handle their correspondence.”
“She mentioned speaking of Sarah and Striker,” Gaston said.
“But that is a thing they were apprised of, anyway,” Theodore muttered. “As they were with the child; and as they surely were of my friendship with Will. It is likely they have someone other than Washington spying for them.”
“Perhaps it is the uncle. As for the wife, I am sure she complained bitterly of Jamaica,” Gaston sighed, “but as for anything else she might have said, I too wonder at that. Will had already apprised his father of our relationship. She knew of it when she arrived.”
Their words were tumbling through my own turbulent thoughts: shadowed and flickering motes of information, like leaves blown in a whirlwind of dirt. And then there was clarity. All became very clear when I peered through the lens of Shane’s ambition: painful but clear. It was as if I could see the bullet embedded in my flesh and pluck it out.
“She would have been smug,” I said. I raised my head and found the stall dimly illuminated by a single candle. Theodore was a shadowy form beyond the netting. “She would have been pleased to tell him she was married and the marriage had been consummated and she was with child. Depending on her phrasing, he might have read much into that, which might have pleased him, or it might have angered him.”
“You say the cousin suggested you should accept an illegitimate child?” Theodore asked. “Does that not seem at cross purposes with the Earl’s wishes?”
I smiled sadly. They could not see the matter as clearly as I now did. “Shane and my father do not think with one mind,” I said. “They are set upon separate and colliding paths like poorly-aspected planets. Shane wishes to inherit: nothing more, nothing less. He said what he did in order to lead her to anger my father.”
“Oh,” Theodore said with surprise. “I see.”
Gaston laid a finger aside my jaw and turned my head to face him. He studied me with concern, only to nod at what he found in my eyes. I kissed the tip of his nose.
“So, though your father seems willing to go to great lengths to defend him, we might assume they are actually working at cross purposes,” Theodore was saying.
“Not always,” I said. “My father wishes to have an heir he feels is worthy of the title. Shane wishes to be that heir. They are pitted against one another, but they are also pitted against me, in that I stand in the path of both their purposes. We, or rather I, have known that for a long time now; I just fail to see it in the proper light from time to time, due to my… entanglement with Shane. I let emotion cloud my reason.”
Theodore nodded. “I now recall the circumstances of your sister angering him. It was due to his bid to marry her and your arrival thwarting the matter and making it known to your father.”
“Aye,” I said. “Who did not wish for him to marry into the family, as then he could not inherit. We cannot assume they now include one another in their plans any more than they did then.”
“Now what shall we do?” Theodore asked.
“Search my uncle’s room,” I said with surety. “He might well be my father’s unwitting agent. He surely is not Shane’s, though. Or rather, he would not knowingly do Shane’s bidding, but perhaps there is far more duplicity afoot in that regard as well.”
Theodore began to leave the stable; he paused and turned. “I was asked to tell you your dinner awaits.”
We thanked him, and lay there silent in his absence for several moments. I listened to puppies and did not meet Gaston’s curious and concerned gaze.
“I was never anything to him,” I said quietly, when it was obvious my matelot would not move until I spoke, and it became apparent to me that I should not leave the safety of his arms until I bled my wounds. “I was ever an impediment to his ambition, and all that passed between us was merely a divertissement. I have long labored under the delusion that he once cared for me in some fashion; and upon learning it was wrong to care for another man, he turned against me and our love, our friendship – or whatever it was I felt we had – in the name of propriety and being a good son: a good man. But nay, I was not even so much as that.”
Gaston pulled my head back to his shoulder and kissed my forehead. I held him, and sighed long and hard, as if I could expel the poison in my heart with that breath; but, I could not: it lingered, clutching at me with painful claws.
“I will endure,” I muttered.
His hand on my head tightened, pressing my face deeper into his flesh, as if he might push me inside him. For a time I took comfort in it, and held him harder, wishing I could sink within the safety of his ribs. Then I could stand it no longer. I could not crawl inside him, and so I must move. I pulled away to gaze down at him.
“I love you.”
“We will conquer,” he murmured.
I smiled sadly. “They will not care.”
He shrugged. “We will care.”
I wondered at that, but I did not voice my concern. I kissed him lightly, and crawled off the hammock. I could hear others out in the atrium.
“I suppose we should inform Sarah of…” I sighed: I did not know what I wished to tell her concerning Vivian’s correspondence. Oddly, I did not want my sister to think poorly of her. “I suppose I should speak to Vivian.”
He nodded and sighed. “I believe she is sincerely distraught over angering you.”
I did too, and then I wondered at that. “I am a trusting fool. I have lost all ability to navigate intrigue. It is as if I have retreated to some state of innocence about men and women and their motives since arriving here. Or perhaps, I only deluded myself as to my prior deftness in such matters.” I thought of all the times that people such as Teresina or Alonso had surprised me. And Shane. “Non, I am a trusting fool. I always have been.”
“You are not a fool,” Gaston said thoughtfully. “You see… snakes… and wolves readily enough, and know them for what they are; but with all others, you grant the blessing of good will, and then if they do move to bite us, you dispatch them quite nimbly. It is one of the things I love about you.”
“Thank you,” I whispered with an aching heart.
He moved to sit beside me. “Will, are you well?”
My mind was still cluttered with sharp and stinking debris of battle: things I dared not look at, stumble upon, or brush against. I shook my head sadly. “Are you?”
He sighed. “Nothing serves to steady my footing as much as seeing you slip.”
I smiled. “I will be well enough. Help me up.”
With a chuckle, he stood, and pulled me to my feet.
“What else might I do?” he asked.
“I wish to drink,” I sighed. “Will it trouble you?”
He nodded amicably. “We have laudanum.”
I reflected on the numbness either would grant me. “Non, wine will do.”
He kissed me deeply, and I found it a balm for many things.
Our guest and housemates, save Vivian, were all seated about the tables. Sam and Henrietta had served roast pork and real bread. All was cold now – if the bread had ever been warm since crossing the threshold – but the smell was still delicious and made my stomach snarl with a ravenous hunger I had not known I possessed. I ignored the curious looks and sat to fill a plate and then my belly. Gaston handed me a flagon of wine, which I drained without delay. I forced myself to take my time to savor the bread. I slathered it with butter and ate it slowly with great relish.
Sarah chuckled. “The baker received a shipment of good flour yesterday. He has told Henrietta there will be bread for weeks now.”
“That is lovely news,” I said around another mouthful. I looked about the tables. All eyes were still upon us: the most curious being Christine’s. I suppressed a sigh with another hunk of bread. “We will be cleaning our Uncle’s room this eve,” I said when I swallowed again. “As we have done little else to assist with the labor this day.” I looked pointedly at Sarah.
She frowned. “It too should be cleaned and painted, but it can wait until he bothers to return in my opinion.”
“Aye, Will, you’ve had a good deal to occupy you today,” Striker said with his own furrowed brow.
I shook my head. “We wish to organize his belongings before he should return.”
Sarah’s brow smoothed abruptly. “Oh.”
I nodded. “We have learned the name of an agent either Shane or our father has used, and now we feel it best to see if there are others.”
“Do you need any assistance?” she asked quickly.
“Nay, the three of us should be sufficient,” I said, and gestured at Theodore, who was such an honest man he appeared a little guilty once again.
Dupree had been translating. The Marquis now grinned. “Will you be speaking with this agent?”
I looked to Theodore, and translated the question.
“He is truly well-respected and well-employed,” Theodore said with a trace of regret.
“It would appar
ently pose some difficulty to speak to him as we would wish,” I told the Marquis, even as Dupree translated Theodore’s words.
“That is a pity,” the Marquis said. “Is there any Mister Theodore might employ who could spy upon the man?”
I translated that for Theodore.
He sighed. “I have been thinking on it, but it is such a small damn town,” he said bitterly, and took a sip of his wine. “There are likely people watching me to see if I make inquiries.”
“Well,” I said, “let us search for other avenues of attack.”
“We’ll find lanterns to speed your work,” Striker said, and Pete chuckled.
“I will meet you upstairs,” I told Gaston and Theodore. I stood and loaded another plate with a nice piece of bread covered in butter, and some lean pork. I took another long drink of my refilled flagon and left it with Gaston, and then filled another cup with water from the pitcher on the table.
The parlor was dark, and I had to set the food down and fetch a lit match cord from the nearest lantern so that I might light a lamp. I did not look for Vivian until I had light to do so. I found her crumpled on the end of the settee, staring at me with eyes wide like some small and startled forest creature. She did not move, except to follow me with her gaze as I crossed the room and set her meal upon the table near her.
“I am not angry with you,” I said as I sat beside her. “You did not know. I believe he planted such suggestions in the fertile field of your anger – not that you might not have had them before – in order to cause further discord between my father and myself; which is exactly what has occurred. What is done is done, and much of it by my own hand.
“Shane has ever wished to… be me, to have all that was mine. He used you. I will trust that you understand that you were used, and that you will never communicate or correspond with my cousin, my father, or any agent they might have ever again. If you do, then I will be angry.”
She nodded, the movement dislodging a fat tear from her eye. I gently wiped it away with my thumb. Her face was smooth, with no lines of emotion I might read etched upon her features, and even her eyes reflected the lamp such that I could not see past the shine of her tears. Thus, I was surprised at the suddenness of her movement as she reached for me, and had to fight the urge to pry her arms from me as she embraced me fervently. I held her as she sobbed.
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