My heart felt as if it would burst, and it took nearly all my concentration to remain still and silent.
“But…” His father said with dismay. “You have been with a woman, now, non? Your bride, oui? I understand your love for him, I merely…”
Gaston sighed. “Women are complicated for me. It is due to… Gabriella… But, I feel, even if there was not that and my madness to contend with, I might find I preferred Will.”
“Well,” his father sighed. “That would mean you love men more than women, would it not?”
“Non,” Gaston said with a sigh. “It would mean I prefer the tightness of an anus; and that, for my life here, I prefer the constant company of a man as opposed to a woman who I must ever leave in port. And though I wish for children, I am pleased to not have to concern myself with the matter every time I wish to tryst.”
His father had flushed anew and now laughed. “I can see where that might have a benefit. For the life you lead here,” he added seriously.
“If I come to France,” Gaston said with equal somberness. “Will will be with me, and we will share a bed wherever we reside.”
“My son,” the Marquis said, “in France, as in England, sodomy is illegal. I do not know if the English prosecute the matter with diligence, but in France it is a matter under the purview of the Church and the church courts. They overlook individuals with those proclivities if they are discreet, and in the city or at court, but a nobleman having a lover in his bed at all times would be…” He shook his head sadly. “Especially in the country. We have loyal servants, I feel that if you have a wife and children, and Will has a room down the hall, they will overlook the fact that one bed or the other is not often slept in. But discretion will have to be maintained outside of the household.”
I wished to cry, as it was a truth I well knew.
He continued patiently. “If you wish to be a nobleman, to be as you were born to be, then you must accept that there are sacrifices in the name of that responsibility. I know Will is willing to walk away from his birthright because… well, he should; and judging from what I have heard, he will never gain it anyway. But… My Lord, Gab… Gaston. We have mended our differences, have we not? I wish to welcome you back with open arms and give you all that I have. It will do neither of us any good if you are charged, condemned, and burned at the stake.”
I could remain silent no longer. I did not need to hear Gaston’s reply. I knew it in my heart, just as I knew he must hear mine before he said a thing that he might later wish to rescind.
“We will do as we must,” I said.
The Marquis started, and Gaston’s head appeared at the foot of the bed to gaze at me with teary eyes through the bars.
I switched to English. “This means much to you, my love. Details need not be decided now. Do not throw it away. We can manage something when the time comes, or perhaps not, and you will choose not to accept it. Perhaps you can accept it and we can avoid living in France. I do not know what the future holds, and neither do you – as you once told me. For now, reassure him. You need make no protestation for me. I do not doubt your love.”
He awarded me a wry smile. “How much did you hear?”
I grinned. “Let us say I wish I could discuss things sexual with my father in such a fashion.”
He snorted with amusement and turned back to his father. “Will says we cannot know what the future holds, and we need not wrestle with such matters now, nor should I make some stand. He will abide by whatever needs be done.” He sighed heavily. “I suppose I will, too.”
His father appeared very relieved, and he looked to me to award me a nod of gratitude and respect.
“I love him… beyond all reason,” I said gravely.
He nodded again and turned back to his son. “I am sure something can be arranged that will… perhaps not be the best for all involved, but will suffice.”
Gaston nodded. “We will face that matter when the time comes.”
His father pursed his lips and frowned. “Is this why you do not wish to return to France with me, now? In addition to the matter of your legal standing.”
“Partly,” Gaston said. “I need Will with me. We have enough to battle now, without having to worry about nosy servants and priests. And, I cannot face… court… or even possibly unfamiliar people day after day at this time. I feel I will in time, but not now.”
The Marquis nodded gravely.
“And even…” Gaston sighed. “Even at the best I can imagine being in regards to my madness, I do not wish to live in a home where I must watch my back at all times. It will drive me to madness.”
The Marquis frowned. “I will consider that. How things are arranged, and how they might be changed to… So that you need not concern yourself with troublesome things every day.”
That concerned me. I thought there would likely be much we would wish to have a hand in regarding the family lands and how the people were treated upon them and the like. I would not have us insulated from them. And then there was another matter of things we would wish to have a hand in the daily affairs of.
“Children,” I said. “Once they are produced, we will wish to raise them, as we have said.”
“Oui,” Gaston said quickly.
I smiled at the Marquis. “We will not find it suitable that they are raised by nannies and tutors in another wing of the house, and only brought around to see us before their prayers.” I tried to remember other households I had visited over the years. “Perhaps… There can be a set of family rooms, or a wing, that would have very few servants and we could live there with our wives and children, and thus none would be the wiser as to the actual sleeping arrangements as they should occur.”
And then I remembered that our wives might have sleeping arrangements they wished to pursue separate of us as well. I suppressed a sigh. We were fools to think we could attempt what we sought. However would we make us all happy?
The Marquis was thoughtful. “That is done… on rare occasion.”
I smiled. “I know; I have seen it: on rare occasion.”
He smiled. “You are correct, though; something can surely be arranged.”
Gaston made no comment, nor did he seem to wish to consider the conversation any longer. He pulled himself off the floor and came to sit beside me and check my bandage.
My shoulder had ached since I awoke, but it had seemed a distant thing in comparison to the other matters being discussed – or rather, my interest in them. Once my wound was exposed to the air, though, I became quite aware of its primacy on the horizon of my concerns.
“How am I?” I asked in French: my matelot’s face did not appear peaceful, and I was not sure if it was due to the conversation or the state of my wound.
“It is angrier than I would like,” he sighed, and smelled the soiled bandage he had removed.
The Marquis had moved his chair closer. “Is he not well?” He grimaced at the sight of my shoulder.
I craned my neck – despite the pain it caused me – and saw the puckered wound was indeed red and swollen.
“I will prepare a poultice,” Gaston said, and left the wound uncovered. He looked back at it as he stood. “If that does not draw the inflammation out, I will be forced to open it to drain the wound. It will take longer to heal then.”
“So you will not be able to sail?” the Marquis asked with a touch of hope.
Gaston shook his head. “Non, he can heal on a ship as well as here.” He went to the door, and after peering out to see who might be about, left us.
His father sighed in his wake.
“Would you stay if we did?” I asked.
“Non, sadly, I should not. I have been away too long, and… As we were discussing before you woke, there is much I must attend to in your aid. Including that damn girl,” he sighed and gestured at my shoulder.
“How is she?”
“Furious. Vittese has locked her in a cabin with no windows in order to keep her from attempting to escape.”
&
nbsp; I frowned. “We will not have her harmed.”
He snorted dismissively. “What would you have of her?” he chided. “Would you have her go and tell her father what has occurred? The governor perhaps? As your good Monsieur Theodore noted, under the usual circumstances of trouble of this nature, they would simply hide her away for shame and perhaps demand a duel or some sort of dowry; but I feel in these circumstances she cannot be but a thorn in your side, if not a knife in your back.”
He was correct. We had made her an enemy, and it was likely that even if her father did not demand satisfaction for the matter, she would make another attempt to harm us herself – and such an attempt could take many far more lethal or troublesome forms than a little pistol shot. Or, someone would seize upon some way to use her to our disadvantage even without her consent.
“So what is to be done with her?” I asked. “Strangle her and dump her at sea? Sadly, that would truly be in our best interests.”
He rolled his eyes. “I hope it will not come to that. I truly do. If she does not calm during the voyage, I know not what we will do with her. I would rather hand her over to her mother’s family in France, or even send her to her aunt in Geneva. But I cannot have her tearing through the courts casting aspersions on Gaston now. I pray she will come to her senses and realize that she can make the best of this situation if she will but take the money I give her and keep her mouth shut.”
“That is my hope as well,” I said. “Could her uncle cause problems for you?”
“He could, but I will slander the girl and her family before I allow that to happen,” he said with a shrug. “Her mother did marry beneath her, and I am sure there is either a scandal or some other machination involved in that which her kin would rather not have examined, as I have heard little talk of it before now.”
I envisioned Christine standing between snarling wolves; and then I remembered the look in her eyes when she pulled the trigger, and then a dozen other examples of her smugness and anger about my matelot and me. She was not some little lamb, but a she-wolf who could bite and snarl with the best of them. I vowed I would cease to be tempted to feel pity for her.
“You know something of her,” the Marquis was saying. “Will she come to her senses?”
“She will cool like tempered steel,” I said sadly. “And be all the sharper in the end.”
He sighed. “I do not wish to resort to murder.”
I snorted. “I will kill her if need be to protect Gaston.”
“But sadly,” he noted, “you will not be on hand when such a decision must be made.”
“Has Vittese killed for you before?” I asked.
He paused before nodding tightly.
A thought occurred to me, and I sighed. He regarded me with curiosity.
“We are little different than my father,” I said.
The Marquis snorted. “Non, that is not true.”
He did not elaborate; and he was no longer meeting my gaze.
I smiled. “And how are we different? I see no difference, other than I stand here and he stands there – on the other side of a fence he has made between us.”
“This is a war,” the Marquis said with a nonchalant shrug and a fidget with his cane that belied it. “A feud. And we did not start it. You are correct, he made the fence.” He shook his head. “I love… loved, all my sons; yet, even when I saw them heading toward ruin, I did not resort to attempting to break them or destroy their friends and associates. Even with Gaston – though… I might have killed him that night in my rage – I did not wish to see him harmed or tortured in an asylum in order to save me the trouble he caused.”
“Hold,” I said. “I did not mean to imply that you were as base or conniving a man as my father: you are not. But, we are wolves at heart, and we do what we must when we feel it is warranted. But whereas you and I act from love…” I shook my head. That line of reasoning was unsound. “My father does what he does for love of another, too, I suppose.”
The thought pained me nearly as much as my shoulder. There was that betrayal Sarah and I had discussed. A father should do all in his power to protect his son, not his godson. But I was not the son he wanted; and his wanting Shane over me merely proved him to be a fool.
I shook my head. I had walked these paths before and found they led nowhere.
“You are a better man than my father,” I told the Marquis. “Never doubt that.”
He frowned at me with sympathy. “Your father… I wish he would experience some epiphany as I did, and realize he should seek to redress your grievances and act toward you as a father should. I have hopes of that: that once he realizes others – his peers – are involved, he will realize the error of his ways.”
I tried to envision that. “I do not think I could ever trust him. I would always feel he made amends or acted kindly in order to secure the good opinion of others and not mine.”
“Is your father not a Christian man?” he asked.
“By birth, I suppose. Do I feel he has ever expressed a Christian sentiment – said or done a thing that the Savior himself would commend – outside of a church or the presence of clergy? Non.”
“That is… unfortunate,” the Marquis said, and then glanced toward the door. “My son is not a religious man, now, is he? I know he once considered becoming a monk, before…” He sighed.
“That night broke his skin, his voice, and his relationship with God,” I said without rancor.
He winced. “Can that be mended?”
I thought of all our talk of Gods. “I feel he is at peace on the matter.”
The Marquis seemed uncomfortable about saying whatever he would next. He finally sighed and said, “Being a member of the Catholic Church is part of a French lord’s life.”
I nodded. “We will do as we must.”
This did not seem to satisfy him, but Gaston entered before he could speak. My matelot set a kettle and a bowl on the table and handed me a small bundle of bacon. I ate while he sorted through herbs and selected several and began to combine them in a bowl with steaming water. I knew that mass would soon go into a muslin bag and then upon my wound.
“Might I have another dose?” I asked.
“This should not hurt,” he assured me.
“It hurts now,” I said.
He smiled. “Wait a moment.”
I sighed.
“My faith has brought me great strength over the years,” the Marquis said.
Gaston stopped mixing and looked to me and not his father.
I smiled wanly. “French lords must be good Catholics.”
Gaston sighed and turned back to his work. “My faith gives me great strength, too; and someday, when I must, I will attend mass, take the sacrament, and confess.”
“But,” his father said with worry, “You… Have you confessed and been absolved since... that night… for what happened then and all you have done since? I am not asking as… As your father, I am concerned for your immortal soul.”
Gaston stopped mixing again, and grasped the edge of the table. I could see his shoulders tighten.
“My lord,” I said calmly. “Leave the matter be.”
Gaston’s gaze met mine, and I saw great love there, so much that my breath caught.
He turned to face his father. “Non. I have confessed and prayed and been absolved.”
“That requires a church and…”
“Does it?” Gaston asked with surprising calm. “Non, I have not become a Huguenot. I know what is heresy and blasphemy, and I will not transgress in the presence of anyone who will bring the matter before the Church. Now, however, this is the last day we will see one another for possibly several years. I do not wish to fight over this now. I love you. Have faith in me.” He turned back to the bowl and began to place the mass in the bag.
His father smiled, and his eyes filled with tears. He stood and went to Gaston and embraced him. They held one another for a time until Gaston gently pushed his father to sit again and brought the poulti
ce to me. I said nothing as he applied it to my shoulder and poured me a strong dose of laudanum.
“You did that very well,” I whispered in English after I took the drug.
He smiled. “I love you. Now rest. I will take my father to the apothecary’s.”
A strange thought gripped me: he would be fine without me.
“What?” he asked at whatever he saw on my face.
I shook my head. “Nothing, I would have you take more than your father with you, though.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “I suppose that is true. Now rest, and know that I love you.” He kissed my forehead lightly, and then my eyes so that I closed them, and then my lips. It seemed a form of benediction, and I let it release me.
They left, and I dozed: troubled by errant visions of how we would one day be forced to live, and the stench of the poultice.
Gaston gently woke me sometime later, but not so much later that the drug had receded. I felt no pain, and the door seemed a distant thing.
“The priest is here,” he whispered, even though we were alone.
He had dressed as a gentleman, and I saw clothing laid out for me at the foot of the bed as he helped me sit. My wound seemed a bit less red, but perhaps it was my imagination. I knew it only ached less due to the drug. He began to dress me in silence. I kept thinking that there was much I needed to discuss, but I could think of none of it. Still, his silence concerned me.
I cupped his jaw and brought his eyes up to mine when he finished lacing my boots. “Speak to me,” I implored.
He sighed. “It is best if I do not think. I will marry her. We will say our goodbyes and go to the ship. Then we will escape.”
I nodded and sluggishly cursed my foolishness. “I will leave you be.”
He shook his head and smiled wanly. “Never.”
We made our slow way down to the parlor. I could have walked there – possibly well enough – by myself, but with the drug making me dizzy, I leaned on him gladly.
Striker and Pete joined us in the parlor to stand in witness alongside Theodore, the Marquis and Dupree. The only others present were the bride and clergy, and we had seen no one as we descended the stairs. I wondered where and how Striker had driven them off. Agnes was dressed in the gown she had worn to visit Mistress Garret; and her hair was plaited and coiled in a manner that showed her graceful neck. Her lip was still swollen, but all had the good sense not to mention it, even the priest. He was the same unctuous individual who had performed my marriage and Striker’s.
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