Treasure

by W. A. Hoffman

  “With the moving it is not as bad,” she noted. “But it is not as fine as the touching.”

  “It rarely is the first time,” I assured her as I turned back to Gaston.

  He was finding his pleasure, or rather his cock was; and I thought once it gripped him he would make short work of the matter. I was correct: he came a few strokes later.

  She gasped with surprise as he thrust deep and grunted.

  “I can feel it moving in there,” she said.

  He withdrew and collapsed on the floor beside her.

  “If I fetched my paper, could I draw you making love?” she asked.

  Gaston regarded the ceiling with bemusement.

  “I suppose,” I said slowly, “but perhaps we should rest for a time...”

  There was a knock on the door and we jumped.

  “Sirs, are ya in there?” Henrietta called.

  “Aye, aye,” I said quickly. “We are bathing.”

  “On a day like taday? Sam said ya were but I didna’ believe ’im.”

  “Henrietta, what do you need?” I asked.

  “It na’ be me, it be the mistresses,” she said. “Lady… Mistress Williams be askin’ for ya, an’ Miss Vines, an’… well sir, I think perhaps Lord Montren should be speakin’ with your sister.”

  “We will be out soon,” I sighed.

  Gaston had already stood and found his breeches.

  I waited until I heard Henrietta walk away before speaking. “Well, if we all so desire, it appears we must continue this another time.”

  Agnes toyed with the edge of the blanket thoughtfully. “I would be amenable to that. Even this last part. I would try it again.” Then she looked to Gaston. “Do you feel Sarah is ready to birth?”

  “That is what I suppose I must determine,” he said. He stopped at the door and looked down at me with hundreds of unsaid words.

  “I am well,” I assured him. “I will see to Vivian. You go to Sarah.”

  He leaned down and kissed me deeply. “I love you.”

  “And I you, more than I can say.”

  He nodded and my words seemed to calm him somewhat. He looked to Agnes. “Thank you.”

  She nodded with a small smile, and he left us.

  “You should probably wait after I leave before slipping out,” I said.

  She nodded her understanding. “I think I will take a bath. I am still sticky with you.” She grimaced.

  I kissed her lightly, found my breeches, and slipped out the door. I wondered if the Gods had delivered us a blessing or a curse.

  Sixty-Nine

  Wherein We Choose to Play

  Gaston was more than a step or two ahead of me; he had already donned a tunic and was standing outside Sarah’s door. I saw the door open, but with the rain I did not hear what was said; I only saw that he entered.

  Now, standing half naked in the cold, I found I could easily consider the whole interlude a pleasant dream. I wished to speak to him of it, more to confirm it had indeed occurred than for reassurance that he was well with it – or that I was, for that matter.

  Reluctantly, I went to the stable and found a tunic before dashing to see Vivian.

  “Where have you been all day?” Vivian demanded as I entered her room. “Henrietta told me you were still sleeping this morning, and now you have been in the bathing room.”

  “Well, it would appear you have no need to ask where I have been,” I said with some amusement. “We did not hear you were seeking us until a few minutes ago.”

  She glared at me. “My breasts are full and I would like to feed my baby.”

  “Let us go, then,” I said. “I am sorry you have been waiting.” And I silently cursed my thinking the baby and she were fine without us this morn.

  She did not move. “Have you been fucking all day?” she asked vehemently.

  “Would it make you angrier if I had?” I asked, my ire rising. I was beginning to feel she wished to fight far more than she wished to see her child. I was curious if she was drunk, but I smelled no rum or anything else that she might have used to mask it, and her words and eyes were clear and cold. “Is that what you want, to be angry?”

  “Nay!” she roared. “I do not wish to be angry. That is why I am angry.”

  I took two steps to the door and stopped. On the one hand, I had never seen any man – myself included – win an argument with a woman when she was thus; on the other, leaving would solve nothing and we were asking ourselves to live with the woman: she was going to have to learn to convey her thoughts and feelings in a rational manner.

  I turned back to her, grasped her shoulders, and met her angry gaze. “Think about your answer. Why are you angry with me?”

  “Because you were not here,” she said quickly.

  “Why did that make you angry?”

  “Because you are…” She stopped and looked away.

  “Because I am what?” I asked.

  She pulled away and I allowed it. “It is nothing. Let us go.”

  “Nay,” I said. “I will go, and you can stay here with your full breasts and pout all damn day, or you can speak your mind.”

  She crossed her arms and sat on the bed. “You will not like what I have to say, and it matters not. It will change nothing.”

  “I already do not like what you have been saying, so in that respect, it matters not,” I said. “But I would know why you are angry with me for not being here when I did not know I should be here. Aye, I should have looked in on you sooner, but I thought Henrietta was available to do that. I forgot that you had begun to feed the baby. You could have simply asked Henrietta to wake us. But no, you did not do that. You sat up here and became angry, did you not?”

  “I am not being childish,” she said bitterly.

  “Call it what you will,” I said, “but if I had not sworn I would never beat you, I would consider putting you across my knee.”

  She shook her head and looked away stubbornly with teary eyes. “I do not wish to fight with you.”

  I thought myself a fool for staying, but here I was. I guessed wildly in the name of goading her. “You are angry that I was fucking and you were not.”

  She swiped her tears away and glared at me. “Not everyone wants to spend their lives fucking.”

  “You are angry that I was lying safe and warm in someone’s arms and you were not.”

  She flinched and flushed and looked away with pain in her eyes.

  I sighed. “Damn it, girl…” I could not envision us ever being with her as we had just been with Agnes. And I did not know if I wished to continue what we had started with that girl. But I surely knew Vivian would wish for far more love than we had shown Agnes. She wanted love: she needed it. I could not ever place one foot on that path without breaking her heart. “I am sorry I cannot love you as you deserve.”

  “I know. I know,” she sobbed. “I know you cannot. You are kind to me, and we are married, and yet I cannot have… you. Not that I want you. Not that I do not. It is ironic. It is just… I am alone.”

  “That need not always be the way of it,” I said softly, and came to sit beside her on the bed. “I wandered lost and alone for years before I found Gaston, but I did find him; and someday you will surely find someone, or he will find you; and then we will do what we can to see that you can be with him. Until then, you will have our daughter to love and be loved by, and you will have our friendship.”

  I moved to take her hand and she scooted further away.

  “Do not seek to comfort me: it makes it worse,” she said quietly. “I do not know if I can bear ten years of loneliness – not without rum.”

  I had surely not borne it without wine. I sighed. “You might surprise yourself.”

  She snorted. “I might kill myself.”

  “What would you have me do to make it better?” I asked. “Other than supply you with rum?”

  “I do not know,” she sighed.

  “Let us at least work towards bringing Jamaica here,” I said. “An
d I am sorry we made you wait so long. It was not solely because we are thoughtless cads. We have problems of our own, and I do not say that to give excuse or evoke your sympathy.”

  “His madness?” she asked with a frown.

  I nodded. “It strikes in peculiar ways at times, and he needs to be alone with me to sort through it.”

  She nodded. “I am sorry. I will try to remember that the next time I am feeling… sorry for myself.”

  I truly wished I could comfort her. “Thank you. And I promise we will try and remember others are relying on us. We have already chided ourselves on the matter and still… We are used to seeing to ourselves and no one else.”

  She smiled sadly. “I have never had to care for anyone. That is why I am afraid I will do poorly by the baby.”

  “It takes time to learn,” I said. “It took many months before we became used to seeing to one another and not ourselves alone. I think it is harder for those of us who have been poorly cared for. We do not have fine examples to emulate. I know what I do not wish to ever do to a child, but I know so little of the things I should do as a father.”

  “I understand,” she said, and sighed and stood: my worries were still etched upon her face. “Let us go.”

  Rachel was thankfully pleased to see us and said our arrival was well-timed, as both Elizabeth and Jamaica were hungry. She soon had me shooed out to her husband’s office while they dealt with the children.

  Theodore was thankfully alone, and I supposed that was due to the weather and not the lateness of the day.

  “I have something for you,” he said proudly, and pointed to a document sitting at the edge of his desk. “I found a model for it in one of my books.”

  I went to peruse the paper, and found it to be my formal renunciation: all couched in the language of the law, and made to sound so very proper that no one might ever guess the hardship, blood, and tears that gave rise to its intent.

  “Thank you,” I sighed. “It is quite lovely.”

  He regarded me speculatively. “Is it still what you wish to do?”

  “Aye, aye,” I assured him. “It is just so very… proper. I suppose there is a part of me – a very foolish part of me – that would have those receiving this to know the why of it.”

  He shook his head regretfully. “That has little bearing on the law.”

  I smiled. “I suppose it does not.”

  “And it would just serve to embarrass your father and make him even angrier than this will alone,” he added kindly. “This, they can at least speculate about.”

  “I know.”

  “I will arrange a meeting with the governor after the rain stops.” He set the document aside, and lowered his voice to ask with feigned nonchalance. “So, were you able to see to that other matter?”

  I grinned. “We met with that individual – who appears quite well if you are curious – and found an arrangement could not be made to our liking.”

  He leaned forward with great curiosity and whispered. “Why?”

  I leaned forward as well, so that my whisper did not have far to traverse the teak. “She was not conducive to my remaining with him throughout. And though I am sure she could have instructed any man quite adequately, that was not the true cause of our concern, and so Gaston plied her for information on women’s ailments and their treatment and we left her with a goodly sum of coin for her trouble.”

  He appeared both relieved and thoughtful, and then concerned again. “May I ask what the true cause of your concern was?”

  I sighed, not knowing what I should say and feeling I had already spoken too much in the name of allaying his fears regarding his recommendation. “Gaston has discovered that he harbors quite… mixed feelings regarding women. He does not wish to suffer a bout of madness in their presence, and thus wishes for me to remain with him and insure that does not happen or guide him from trouble if it does.”

  “Oh Lord,” Theodore sighed and sat back in his chair with a sympathetic gaze. “What will you do?”

  “I believe we have the matter in hand,” I sighed. “Another candidate for… Well, we now have another…” I was at a loss for the word to describe the services Agnes was offering.

  “Should I ask?” he asked archly.

  I sighed. “Agnes: which does and does not change the nature of our relationship with the girl, but perhaps you should be apprised of it.”

  His eyebrows climbed quite high toward his receding hairline.

  “It was her suggestion – do not ask how it was arrived at: I will be puzzling it for days – but through happenstance, she learned we might have such a need and she possessed several reasons of her own for wishing to engage in the… activity.” I said ruefully. “I did not wish to use her so, and I will be loathe to have any learn of it and think we have taken advantage of her.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “I would never assume either of you to have forced yourself upon the girl in any fashion.”

  “I should hope not,” I said with a touch of rancor.

  He feigned wincing from my tone and smiled. “I have no judgment on the matter as long as it meets with the satisfaction of all the parties involved.”

  I sighed. “Well… it has so far.”

  I recalled Gaston’s tears and – the rest of our charges and responsibilities be damned – I truly needed to discuss the matter with my matelot as soon as I returned home.

  “So tomorrow, then?” I asked.

  Theodore nodded. “If there is no rain. I never relish traveling to Spanish Town in the mud.”

  “I never relish traveling anywhere in mud,” I said.

  We went to the back room so I could collect Vivian and found her quite engaged in nursing. I was somewhat dismayed: as much as I enjoyed Theodore’s company, I did not wish to stand around in his house this day.

  “Might I leave you here for a time?” I asked Vivian.

  Though she tensed at the suggestion, such that it disturbed the baby from her business, Vivian did not blanch, and her nod, though tight, was indeed a nod. I looked to Rachel.

  “She is welcome to stay as long as she wants,” Rachel said graciously. “The children will nap and we can have chocolate and talk.”

  I turned back to Vivian and found her now quite pale. She managed a thin smile for her hostess, though, and I was proud of her.

  Then she glared up at me. “Do not forget I am here.”

  I bowed.

  She rolled her eyes.

  I hurried home, only to find the stable empty. There was no one to be seen in the rain-soaked atrium or yard. All was dim, yet not dark enough to require lanterns, and all seemed dark and forlorn. I gazed along the line of closed doors upon the balcony and wondered which one I should knock on to find my matelot. The house had swallowed him, or rather the denizens of those rooms had. Fear and melancholy struck such that they nearly drove the breath from my lungs. I stood wet and gasping, wondering at myself and this sudden onslaught of madness.

  Gaston found me some interminable time later: frozen to the center of my soul and huddled beneath our blanket in the straw with the puppies and three dogs, who could do little to warm me. We shared one glance and I was pulled tightly into his embrace and held until I stopped shaking.

  “What has happened?” he hissed with worry, when I had found the composure to stop clutching at him.

  “I am sorry,” I whispered. “I am sorry. It is only me. I… slipped… for but a moment. I returned and could not find you. I could not even look. I was gripped… I felt lost… loss. That I had lost you. It was foolishness… madness, really. I will be well.”

  “You will not lose me,” he murmured.

  “I know. I do. Truly. I just…” I sighed as I puzzled through my feelings and our metaphors. “My Horse… must be concerned.”

  He pulled me to my feet and then to the hammock and stripped my wet clothes away.

  “If it is to rain like this, we need another blanket,” I said, as he wrapped our naked bodies together in our singl
e expanse of warm wool.

  He snorted in my ear, and then his mouth was upon me, cajoling and sweet, and best of all, warm, until at last the cold gripping me began to abate. My cock remained ominously still, and thus I was able to note with amusement that his had risen yet again. I did not argue that he need not prove his love to me, or for me. My Horse wished for the assurance; and I knew, in a distant manner, that I should not deny it. It was as if I watched our lovemaking unfold from the vantage of a high tower, and judged it a good thing to witness but not an activity I need actually engage in. And that vantage gave me the curious and ironic presence of mind to wonder why I was not concerned that I felt so very far away.

  “I am not well,” I breathed, as he discovered my inert member.

  He began to pull away: I stopped him. He continued for a short time, and then pulled out abruptly, only to return to hold me with every other part of his body that could.

  “I am warmer now,” I said. “I felt frozen before.” I kept turning about my thoughts – disconnected and jumbled things – seeking some design they might form. “My Horse seems happier now. I still feel oddly distant: as if I am not in my body.”

  He squirmed over me so that we lay face to face: his held compassion and love. “That is often how I feel when my Horse takes the bit.”

  “Truly? As if you watch events but do not feel them?”

  He nodded. “Sometimes.”

  “It is odd. I always envision the madness gripping either of us as a potent thing. A thing that envelops all senses and bears us down or drags us off.”

  “Sometimes it drags you off and then you watch it,” he said with a thoughtful frown.

  “As if our Horse throws us from its back and we must catch it again. You have always likened it to hanging on to a rampaging animal, though.”

  He shrugged. “Sometimes it is.”

  I sighed. “It makes me feel the fool for all my pretensions of control… Of viewing it as a thing of light and the cave and…”

  He hushed me with a kiss. “It is all metaphors and it is none, Will. You know that; you are merely lost in it now.”

  I did. I sighed and nuzzled his neck; and he held me; and I listened to the rain, and his heartbeat.