“I never wished for any of this,” she finally gasped. “When I was little I wanted to run away and live with the fairies. I did once. I snuck out of the house. I did not find any fairies in the woods, though; they were just dark and scary and cold. One of our peasants found me. He took me home, and I was beaten and locked away in the attic for a long time. I was happy there. I was alone. I wanted to stay there, but they watched me closely after that, and I never got another chance; and then I was out of the nursery and I discovered wine. I could sit in a room full of people and think my own thoughts and not even know they were there when I was drunk.”
“We will hide you away,” I assured her.
“How is it that you do not drink as I do?” she asked, and then pulled back to regard me with accusation. “And I smell wine upon you.”
“Aye,” I said, and realized there was an answer to that question. “Shane gave me reason to drink; but, he also taught me the dangers of drinking to excess. I could not avoid him if I was too drunk. And ever after, despite the pain of my memories, I have always known that drinking so that I was always numb to the world would have been my death: drunk men do not duel well.”
She nodded, and sat up so that she was not pressed to my chest. “No one ever cared that I was drunk. They were happy it kept me quiet. And if I said things I should not, I was slapped and put away – with no wine – until I promised to keep a civil tongue. And then I came here and discovered rum. It is…”
“The Devil’s brew,” I teased. “It is tenfold stronger than any wine or ale.”
She nodded again. “I did not tell him about Jamaica – about how she was conceived. Even drunk on rum, even with what he said…” She shook her head.
“I believe you,” I said kindly. “They did not need to hear she was not mine from you. All in town spoke of you having an affair, remember?”
“That stupid boy,” she sighed. “He thought he was in love with me.”
“Young men are often stupid that way. I can well attest to it.” I stood and leaned down to kiss her forehead. “Try and sleep.”
“So you are searching your uncle’s room this night?” she asked.
I smiled. “Do you listen to all that is said in the atrium?”
She shrugged. “It is often more amusing than my thoughts. I wish I spoke French.”
I was very glad she did not, especially since she would live with us. But then another thing occurred to me, and I squatted before her to ask. “What have you heard said of me?”
She frowned, her eyes narrowed, and then she nodded. “They… Captain Striker, his friend, your sister, and the others, they often drop their voices to whispers and I do not hear what they say. I do hear that your name or Lord Montren’s is often mentioned before the whispering starts. And I have heard mention of madness concerning both of you several times.” Her gaze became speculative at this last.
I sighed: it was as I thought, and I realized I should not have asked. “That will entail a lengthy discussion, and I do not feel like engaging in it tonight. Suffice it to say that many here feel we are mad, and Gaston is renowned for it.”
“In what way?” she asked with concern.
“In that we do not always think or behave as other men do.”
She snorted. “That is obvious.”
Chuckling with relief that I had dodged that thrust, I left her to her meal and went to join Gaston and Theodore.
Striker and Pete had indeed procured several bright lanterns, and now my uncle’s room was filled with light and people. I had to work my way around our wolves, the Marquis, Dupree, and Rucker in order to reach Gaston and Theodore by the desk.
“I do not believe we will all be required,” I said lightly.
“We’re bored,” Striker said.
“You are in the way,” I chided. “And this will either be over quickly or become quite dull.”
With heavy sighs – from all – Striker, Pete, the Marquis, and Dupree withdrew from the room.
I stopped Rucker before he could join them. “It is likely, with all the time you spent with my uncle, that your recollections may prove useful.”
Rucker nodded. “I keep hoping I will recall something of use. I am adept at remembering names and faces, but there have been so many people we spoke to after arriving… And in these last months, your uncle and I have had a parting of the ways. He found my questioning the practices of the planters with whom he chose to cultivate friendships quite tedious, and even once accused me of being impertinent.”
“I suppose you were questioning how they could treat other men as cattle in the name of money from a crop no one needs,” I said with a grim smile.
“Just so,” Rucker said.
Theodore chuckled. “I can still clearly recall how appalled you were when first I described the function and accounting of a plantation. You had labored under the concept that they were farms.”
“Aye, and not more akin to mines as you instructed,” I sighed.
I looked about at the massive teak furniture: all would have been perfectly acceptable in any English manor house, especially the heavily curtained bed. The recent layer of soot masked unpleasant odors, and I wondered if my uncle still suffered from the flux on occasion. It was perhaps a miracle, and definitely a testament to his strong constitution, that he was not dead. He was unwilling to take any of our advice as to the drinking of boiled water, the eating of the native food, or even sleeping in a cooling breeze.
“Dear Uncle Cedric was raised to be a good English wolf,” I said, “and despite his tendency to be a kind master to the flock closest to him, any man he feels to be beneath him in status and who he does not know the name of is relegated to the category of sheep to be fleeced or eaten. Peasants, soldiers, and tradesmen are faceless and often troublesome commodities. The nobility is a thing apart and should ever be that way.”
“He is like any planter here,” Theodore said. “Even if they were not noblemen when they arrived, they are now after a fashion.”
“Aye,” I said, and grinned at Rucker. “It has been a great disappointment of mine – after Mister Rucker’s fine tutelage on egalitarian philosophies of governance – to find that sheep truly like to be herded, and will do much to maintain their state.”
“Sadly, I feel your experiences match my own,” Rucker said.
“Gaston and I even bemoan the lack of independent spirit on the part of the buccaneers,” I said. “Here they are living as free men, and all many of them wish to do is join the ranks of the wolves, and the rest seem quite content to be whipped into packs like obedient dogs. And yet, we are the madmen,” I muttered.
“Society does change,” Rucker said. “And those changes are always led by men considered mad.”
“I will take some reassurance from that,” I said lightly. “Probably to my grave.”
We began with my uncle’s desk, with me examining each packet of letters and Theodore and Rucker identifying the sender and Uncle Cedric’s relationship with the person. Gaston poked about elsewhere in the room. Those of us reading the assorted notes and lengthy treatises drank steadily, as had been my wont all evening.
Many of the letters contained arguments from Jamaica’s notable planters against doing much of what I had instructed be done at the plantation: growing local food and educating the men there, both white and black. And in the margins of many of these, my uncle had written Marsdale and circled particular points in the text. From this, I suspected my uncle planned to have quite the debate with me over the practices in question. As these supposedly learned arguments had much to do with damning lesser men for their lack of industry and ambition, and relegating the Negros to a status less than human, my ire rose, and I wished to not only fight my uncle over the matters, but win.
By the time we had determined that my uncle was everything I said he was – and perhaps more or less, depending on one’s perception of how men should be treated, traditions upheld, and innovation skeptically queried – we were quite intoxicated
, and my sober matelot had located the cache of correspondence we sought under a loose board in the corner.
I cheered heartily when I recognized my father’s hand on the top letter of the packet Gaston triumphantly tossed onto the bed next to me. The elation at the discovery quickly turned to anger and dismay when I saw that one of the letters in the pile was addressed to me and another to my sister. As my vision was now blurred with wine and ire, I handed the former to my matelot; and he quickly broke the seal and read it.
“It is in response to the letter you wrote him after your marriage,” Gaston said.
I struggled to remember what I had written him at that time. I believed it had been a very concise missive, and essentially only relayed that I had indeed married the bride he had sent.
His face grave, my matelot sat on the bed beside me as he continued reading.
“What?” I prompted.
Gaston shook his head. “He is pleased – or was pleased – that you married her as he instructed; but he admits she might not have been the best choice, and he did not expect you to actually wed her. He hopes for the best, but… alludes to that which we already know: that you might wish to put her out if she proves unsuitable.”
“Gods,” I spat, this new anger burning through even the wine. “Why did my uncle keep it from me?”
“Perhaps he was waiting for you to return to town,” Theodore offered slowly. “Or… he did not wish to hand it to another to be delivered to you.”
I picked up a letter addressed to Sarah; it was also still sealed. “He did not know the content,” I said. “Or did he?” I began sorting through the rest of the letters. Uncle Cedric had received four missives from my father in the months since his arrival. I read them all and passed them to my compatriots.
I soon realized my uncle had not been hiding these letters from us due to maliciousness – or rather, not due to his. He had surely buried them away beneath the boards in a gesture of fondness, if not love. My father’s words to him were not diplomatic, or kind, or even genteel; and I was sure my uncle must have felt the letters addressed to my sister and I contained much the same language. The pages my uncle had received from my father were filled with the words disappointing and regrettable: I was called a useless libertine, a wastrel, and a fool; Sarah’s behavior was likened to that of a wanton trollop; Theodore was referred to as a sodomite-loving ingrate; and Gaston… I shuddered at those words: Shane had never used terms so vile toward my person.
I winced as Gaston and our friends gasped at some the passages. Rucker appeared deeply troubled, but Theodore seemed to find relief in what he read. It was very obvious he had been dismissed due to his apparent tacit approval of my relationship with Gaston, and so he no longer need wonder what he had done wrong.
Cold fear was clawing at my gut and heart. We had worried that Striker might be in danger – a thing that was surely true, judging from my father’s kind words regarding him. But nay, Gaston was the one my father undoubtedly most wished to see dead. We had most probably been saved attempts upon his life only because we had been roving or safely tucked away at Negril. Our limited days in Port Royal had surely been a blessing. And this time when we arrived, there was the Marquis. Anyone my father might have employed must now be awaiting new instruction. I did not believe even my father would commission the murder of another nobleman’s son; but the arrangement of an accident, or a duel, was another matter entirely.
And even more disturbing was the fact that my father knew a great deal about us. His spies had told him of our home at Negril: he wrote of the shame of the heir to Dorshire squatting like a peasant in a hovel. Someone had relayed to him the purported events on Tortuga, the charges of witchcraft from our sailing the summer before, and even that we had apparently quarreled in Porto Bello. He viewed Gaston’s madness as a symptom of the perfidy of sodomy. My moral failings in the matter would have been tolerable if I had been discreet, but he was outraged and appalled I had dragged my title – and thus, through our relationship, his – through the muck and moral mire that was the West Indies.
I was sure he wished me dead, too.
At last all had finished reading. We sat dazed and silent in the aftermath.
I took Gaston’s hand and he squeezed it reassuringly. He had become stiller with every page, until his body was quite rigid and his face frozen into a mask of amazement, but now he sighed heavily and gazed upon me with concern. I smiled weakly.
“Your father despises sodomy, sodomites, and all things pertaining to said topic quite passionately,” Theodore at last remarked.
“Aye,” I said. I thought of the pleasant and diplomatic letters I had received. The only indication I had ever had that my father felt as he did to such degree was his haunting comment on the Christmas Eve I had returned home. When I had asked if he had known all the evil Shane had wreaked upon me, he had admitted, that, yes, he had, and he allowed it because he thought it might put me off men.
“He has a number of spies, it would appear, or one who is very close to you and has written him often.” Rucker observed.
“Aye,” I said. He had informants among the Brethren, or perhaps not. “I will have to reread the letters and consider all he mentions. It could be that he has men in Port Royal who are well-versed in plying the Brethren with rum. By the Gods, I do not wish to consider one of our own working for him directly.”
“You might wish to do that very thing,” Theodore said sadly.
“I know,” I sighed. I stood and collected the pages. I thanked the Gods I was full of wine, else I would surely have stumbled and fallen this night as hard as I had at Vivian’s news. I had been viewing my father’s motives as incorrectly as I had Shane’s.
Gaston was watching me with concern. I shook my head and went in search of Sarah. She had thankfully not retired for the night, nor had any of the others, though it was quite late. They were apparently awaiting news from our search, and to pass the time the Marquis was playing chess with Pete; the Golden One was winning. My descent of the stairs was greeted with eager eyes.
I tossed Sarah her letter. “He had a packet of mail from our father hidden under a floorboard.”
She quickly tore into the missive. I sat opposite her, and watched anger tighten her features. All eyes in the atrium shifted back and forth between us – save the gazes of those who had read what I had: they watched Sarah alone.
“He is disappointed in my behavior, both toward Shane and my hasty marriage,” she said as she threw the pages down. “He deems it regrettable and unfortunate, and asks that I abandon it. Then he goes on to say that if whatever madness gripped me in England has passed, I should be pleased to hear that, though I have permanently scarred my cousin, he yet lives and should recover. And though he feels we can never be allowed about one another again – a thing he expresses great disappointment in, as it serves to complicate matters concerning his households – he wishes for me to return home.”
Her gaze met mine. “Will, it was dated in April. What the Devil was our uncle doing holding it?”
“There was one for me as well,” I said. “I believe our dear Uncle Cedric wished to protect us. Father’s letters to him are not so diplomatic as these sent to us.”
“You have read them?” she asked.
Theodore dropped the pile of pages on the table before her. “Much of it is not fit for a lady’s eyes.”
At that, the three ladies present reached for the letters.
I looked to the gentlemen. “You are in danger,” I told Striker, and then turned to the Marquis, “and your arrival and claiming of Gaston as your son has probably saved his life.”
All appeared stricken by this news. I looked about, and saw Henrietta and Sam waiting near the cookhouse, attentive to any need their masters might have. I saw the shutters to the parlor, and thought Vivian undoubtedly listened from within. I was gripped with the fancy that every shadow held someone lurking, listening, watching. And I had thought our lives complicated enough by our ever seeming to
hold the attention of the Gods.
Sixty-Seven
Wherein We Surrender the Field
I went in search of paper and ink. Gaston followed me to Sarah’s office.
“I must give Pete the information he requested,” I said as I explored the desk.
Gaston wrapped his arms about me as I fumbled at selecting a quill. I knew he sought to comfort me, and though I knew his love to be a balm for all things, it could not remove the sting of this, because I felt nothing I could name so that it might be cured.
“It does not hurt,” I murmured, and stroked his arm. “Or perhaps it is more accurate to say it does not hurt at this moment. It is actually something of a relief to have the suspicions I have long held confirmed. And now I feel we are besieged. We have been living in a halcyon world of blissful ignorance and yet we are in mortal danger. I wonder if he thinks killing you will put me off men.”
I pulled away from him to sit heavily in the desk chair. He knelt before me, with his elbows upon my knees. His gaze was earnest and his expression thoughtful and concerned. He was my touchstone, my anchor, all I held sacred and holy.
“I must protect you,” I said.
He shook his head.
“Non, non,” I said quickly. “This battle is not worth your life, or Striker’s, or Vivian’s, or anyone’s. It is for a thing I do not want. Non, worse yet, it has been fought for a thing I might never have. For all I might wish for them to suffer an epiphany such that they are moved to apologize or make amends, or perhaps simply feel in the deepest recesses of their souls that they were wrong, they will not: that day will never come. I doubt even the fires of eternal Hell could burn away their righteousness and ambition. I cannot win. Even if I put both of them in the ground, I cannot win.”
Gaston smiled sadly. “Would it not be enough to send them to their graves to spend eternity knowing they had lost?”
Treasure Page 36
