“What about?”
“My grave responsibility toward you.”
“How many times do I have to tell you that your intrusions are unwelcome?”
“You must begin a new life, Liberty, make a fresh, clean start.” He leaned forward in the darkness. I could smell his sweat and pomade and tobacco. “I’m not blaming you. It’s Delaplane’s fault. He’s taken advantage of his fame to seduce you. I have an obligation to put an end to it.”
My heart was pounding and I didn’t dare speak for fear my voice would reveal my terror.
“Since the ball, Liberty, you’ve never left my mind. I was up all last night. And this morning I reached a decision. I’m going to turn you into a decent woman.”
“I never want to see you again.”
He shifted to my side of the carriage. His weight sagged the seat and I had to clutch the strap to keep from shifting toward him.
“After you ran away from me in Washington,” he said in a confiding yet assured tone, “I should have taken a wife. I owed it to my position to provide myself with heirs. Yet each time I found a suitable girl, your face would rise between me and her. Liberty, you are meant for me.”
“That’s never been true,” I said, forcing myself not to shrink away from him.
“I’m willing to overlook your past.”
“Are you so egotistical you can’t accept no for an answer?”
“This flouting of morals,” he said in a loud voice, “is Delaplane’s base influence.”
“Stephen’s the most decent of men!”
“You have no brothers, so it’s up to me to settle with him.”
“Settle?”
“I’m the finest shot in Maryland,” he said.
“You—you’re going to call Stephen out?”
“It must be done, Liberty.”
Certainty gleamed in his near-set eyes. Amos Thornton never permitted himself doubts, he needed to believe that his very action was blessed by divine sanction. Arguing with him was like battering myself against a granite wall, yet I said, “You have no right.”
“I have every right,” he said. His breath grew thick. “How you’ve haunted me with your mouth and body,” he muttered with a kind of anger. Clutching at my breasts, his fingers digging through layers of fabric, he crushed me backward, his weight pressing me down onto the seat pillows as he kissed me with his open mouth. I twisted and struggled, but his fingers continued to torment my breasts and his teeth cut hurtfully against my clamped lips, and in my panic it seemed to me that nothing could ever move this huge, insensate force.
I slapped him with the jewel box.
The clasp caught his cheek. He pulled away, his hand to his face.
“Do you think your stupid little flailings could frighten me?” he growled. “When the day comes you’ll learn who’s your master. But we’ll wait until you bear my name.”
He moved away and I managed to brace myself to a sitting position. The carriage rolled onward. Wan chinks of light, windows and door lamps, whirled past in the mist. Quivers were radiating through my stomach and my frightened brain refused to work coherently.
When the carriage jolted to a halt in our courtyard, I didn’t wait for the groom to open the door. Instead, holding tight to the jewel case, I jumped out. The distance was greater than I anticipated. I fell to my knees. Mud splattered on my face, and I leaped up, my filthy skirts clinging around my knees as I raced up the steps to bang the silver knocker.
Stephen answered immediately. “I’ve been worried,” he said. His expression turned to horror. “Liberty, what happened?”
I flung myself into his arms and began sobbing.
“Hush, sweetheart, hush,” he said against my ear. “You’re safe now.”
Then I felt his long, slender body go tense.
“Delaplane,” Amos Thornton said.
“I should have guessed you weren’t far behind when she ran in muddy and terrified.” I could feel the angry reverberations in Stephen’s chest as he spoke.
I pulled away, but he kept his arm firmly on my shoulders.
Amos Thornton stood blocking the open door and around his massive, caped figure curled ghostly fingers of fog. A thin line of blood had dried on his jaw.
“You’ve blackened my ward’s name.”
“She’s my fiancée,” Stephen retorted.
“Will you give me satisfaction?”
Stephen’s hand tightened on my shoulder. “What weapons?” he asked coldly.
“Pistols.”
“Tomorrow at dawn?”
“The Auteuil gate of the Bois de Boulogne,” Amos Thornton said.
“I’ll be there.”
It had all happened too quickly. The servants were beginning to straggle up from the kitchen and peer into the hall when the front door slammed shut.
Iron carriage wheels grated on gravel and I clutched Stephen’s arm. “You can’t! You mustn’t!” I cried.
“Come upstairs, sweetheart.”
“Amos Thornton has to destroy his rivals.” My voice shook as I used Monsieur Champollion’s words. “He’s a crack shot.”
“You have only to look in a mirror, Liberty, to know that if he hadn’t called me out, I would have had to call him.”
“Then fight him as you did in Washington, with your fists,” I begged.
“It’s settled.”
“Not pistols, please?”
“Liberty,” Stephen said, “this is between him and me. Now change from those muddy things.”
Shouting for Uisha, he swept me into his arms and carried me upstairs.
Five
I sat on Stephen’s bed clutching a knitted shawl over my lacy new negligee, watching as he shaved himself. The mirror’s sconced tapers cast shadows on a new line between his dark brows, a sharp, vertical groove. His hand, though, was steady as he stroked the razor.
We were both silent. My frantic arguments against the duel had abated. In this predawn hour, exhausted, I could only stare at him and try to memorize his features.
He bent over the bowl to slosh his face and neck. Yacub handed him a towel. The servant’s bearded face was grim.
“Yacub,” Stephen said quietly. “Go down and saddle my horse.”
Yacub left. Again we were silent. Stephen donned a brown broadcloth jacket and beige riding breeches that fitted tight to his slim, muscular legs. He pulled on his Hessian boots. Then he went to the bureau and opened a cherrywood case. In the velvet lining nestled a pair of long, silver-handled pistols.
Last night he had sent a note to the junior officer who had met us on the Marseilles dock, Ensign Barron—he had come to Paris to aid Stephen in his negotiations. The younger man, proudly agreeing to be Stephen’s second, had lent him the pistols. Stephen removed one, examining the barrel.
I clutched the shawl more tightly. Amos Thornton will be thoroughly familiar with the pistols, doubtless the masterwork of the finest gunsmith, I thought. Knowing him, I was certain he was as good a shot as he had boasted. Stephen, on the other hand, like all American naval men, was more familiar with a rifle.
A knock sounded at the front door. “That’ll be Barron,” Stephen said, replacing the pistol. He came over to the uncurtained bed, lifting my chin. His fingers were icy.
Yet more alarmed, I peered up at him. “You’re worried, aren’t you?”
“Before any fight I am,” he admitted. “I always put my anxiety to use, heightening my perceptions.”
“Let Ensign Barron call it off.”
He released me. “The other night you said you felt guilt for running like a sneak thief from the Pasha. Well, what we did made me feel a craven. I refuse to act that way again.”
He spoke slowly, as if the words hurt him to say. The night chill penetrated my shawl, but my shiver was more from apprehension than cold. “Stephen, you couldn’t be a coward. It’s not in you. And Amos Thornton baited you. It’s entirely different.”
“Different, yes. He treated you abominably.”
“Forget that, please.”
“Liberty, he called me out.”
“Yes, but—”
“There are some things a man must do in order to remain a man,” Stephen said. The new line cut deeper between his brows.
I sighed and after a moment said, “I don’t mean to make it worse, darling. It’s only that I love you so much.”
He pressed a kiss on my lips, then reached for the cherrywood pistol case and left without a further goodbye.
I ran to a window. Night fog lapped at the panes and I couldn’t make out the horses jingling below. I struggled with the brass handle and by the time I pushed the frames apart, the clipping of hooves was fading into the damp, impenetrable Paris night.
Yacub was coming upstairs to straighten the room, and I told him to get me a fiacre. “There’s a stand open night and day on rue de Rivoli. Hurry.”
Though I realized I couldn’t halt the duel, waiting here, not knowing Stephen’s fate, was impossible. Have faith in him, I told myself. My hands shook and I kept dropping things, but I was dressed and standing impatiently on the front steps when Yacub returned with a tall, antiquated hack. I promised the muffled-up driver an extra franc if he trotted all the way to Bois de Boulogne. We set off smartly.
Workingmen clad in the garb of their various trades were hurrying along the streets. They pressed against houses as we clattered by.
It was light by the time we passed through the Porte d’Auteuil into the Bois de Boulogne. There, fog swirled thickly, and tall sycamores, whose branches were beginning to sprout leaves, loomed up then fell away. I rubbed on the window, gazing about for signs of the duel.
Suddenly we came upon a cluster of tethered horses and maybe eight carriages. Why so many? I banged urgently on the roof, signaling we should stop. Thrusting far too many coins in the driver’s gloved hand, I ran toward the faraway rumble of masculine voices.
The tall grass was mist-soaked, and my merino coat was soaking to the knees by the time I came in sight of the oval of raked earth.
I halted, falling back a couple of steps to a stout sycamore trunk, holding a hand to my pounding heart. Except for the narrow-shouldered man with a doctor’s bag, I recognized everyone. They were all Americans.
Naturally, a duel between a hero like Stephen and a man of wealth like Amos Thornton would attract attention from our compatriots.
No one noticed me. They were all intent on Ambassador Hollowell. The white-haired diplomat was pacing off the field: with his booted toe he marked the dirt, then counted aloud his ten long strides, marking again.
“Take your places, gentlemen,” he called in his flat Boston twang.
Stephen walked to the south mark, his face pale and intent. Oh love, love, I thought, and I wanted to cry out that nothing Amos Thornton had done to me, or ever would do including killing me, was worth this. I bit back my words.
Amos Thornton shrugged from his greatcoat, taking a long pistol from his second, a scrawny, dour-looking man that he towered above. The mist-surrounded clearing was silent save for his heavy tread as he took his place to the north.
The duelists faced one another.
Ambassador Hollowell spoke again. “I’ll call, ‘Present,’ then pause. After that I’ll say, ‘One. Two. Three.’ You’ll fire after I say one and before I say three. Not before. Not after. Do you understand, Commodore Delaplane?”
“Aye,” Stephen retorted.
“And you, Mr. Thornton?”
“We fire between the count,” answered Amos Thornton.
“Then it’s clear to both of you,” the ambassador said solemnly.
I have never been sure if what followed would have come about had I not been there. The onlookers had clumped in a group facing the field, looking away from me. All eyes were intent on the white-haired diplomat. Nobody moved, no breeze stirred the grass or branches. Suddenly the trill of a lark fell, beads of sound in the shrouded hush. Amos Thornton glanced up, and saw me standing under the sycamore. For an instant he stared, his lips forming a curious, yearning little smile. Then, as he turned back to Stephen, his mouth became a grimly determined line.
Ambassador Hollowell called out, “Present!”
Both men raised their pistols.
Before the ambassador could speak again, there was a flash of light, a sharp crack almost like a twig breaking. Acrid smoke curled above Amos Thornton.
“Foul!” someone roared.
Stephen remained absolutely erect, but he dropped the borrowed pistol, and his hand jerked to his chest. Then, slowly, the slender, muscular body sagged to raked brown earth.
“Foul!”
“Thornton, foul!”
Lifting my drenched skirts I ran toward Stephen and saw a sharp image of a blond woman in gauzy clothes hurling herself at a pale, turbaned man holding a small, limp blond boy.
“Stephen,” I whispered, dropping to my knees. “Stephen.”
His face already had turned the color of tallow.
“Liberty? Shouldn’t be … here.”
“I couldn’t help it.”
His lower jaw trembled as he tried to smile. “Glad.”
Blood was already seeping through his brown jacket, as the doctor began to cut away the fabric.
Ensign Barron pulled me to my feet. “Thornton shot before the call,” he said, and his distressed young voice broke. “This is a field of honor, and he violated it.”
My eyes were fixed on the doctor.
“The ball missed the heart,” he said rapidly, “but it is most important to get him home.”
The Americans crowded around Stephen. As they lifted him, he groaned and his body went slack.
I whispered, “Is he …?”
“He fainted,” the doctor replied. “And for that we can thank le bon Dieu. Stephen is in much pain.”
On shaking legs I hurried after the men who were carrying Stephen through the fog toward the carriages.
Amos Thornton caught up with me. On his fleshy cheeks burned two red spots of emotion and he was breathing audibly, as if he had just won a race. He reached for my arm. I shrugged him off. And Ambassador Hollowell stepped between us.
Stephen was lifted into a spacious berlin. The wheels were high and there was difficulty passing him through the door. He regained consciousness and a low, agonized cry was wrenched from him.
The white-haired ambassador turned furiously on Amos Thornton. “By God, Thornton, if I could, I’d throw you in jail. You deserve to hang.”
“A dueling ground’s exempt from the law.”
“But not from public opinion. Commodore Delaplane’s a much-honored figure at home. I intend that everyone shall learn what you’ve done. You’ll never hold your head up in the United States again.”
I saw Amos Thornton’s mouth go slack and his eyes turn vehement, and then I paid no more attention, for the French doctor was saying, “Mademoiselle.” Reaching out a hand he helped me up into the berlin.
Six
Stephen’s wound became inflamed.
That whole wet spring he lay in bed with constant pain and recurrent fevers which shot up suddenly. He was always in danger of gangrene—and from his battle experience he was keenly aware of how often chest wounds proved fatal.
He never complained. He rarely spoke. His faculties seemed concentrated in a place I couldn’t follow, and this, as much as his physical condition, terrified me.
I seldom left his side. And was deeply grateful that Ambassador Hollowell had stationed a guard outside the gate so I didn’t need to worry about Amos Thornton forcing his way in.
Stephen recovered slowly. It was early July before he could sit up in a chair and the end of the month before he could have visitors. Ensign Barron was the most constant. He told us that Amos Thornton had left Paris after trying to brazen out his disgrace. “He said the ambassador’s an old dodderer who counted too slowly.”
“That’s not true!” I cried.
The three of us were sitting on the sunlit terrace.
“Nobody believes a word,” said Ensign Barron, his round young face bright with satisfaction. “He hasn’t gone home, and I doubt if he will, at least for many, many years. Our newspapers have printed outraged accounts of the duel, and have branded him a coward, which he is, of course. But for a man of Thornton’s vanity, disgrace is the worst kind of punishment.”
Stephen was gazing absently at a sunny zinnia bed as though our conversation had nothing to do with him. He seemed to be brooding about an urgent personal problem, and often wore a look of baffled unhappiness.
During his convalescence he was so unlike his normal open self that I feared the ball, in piercing too close to his heart, had somehow bled his spirit. I was relieved that in September he was able to continue his negotiations at the pillared Maritime Ministry. The activity, I hoped, would snap him out of his distraction.
The hours he was at the Ministry I spent at Monsieur Champollion’s study. In Paris the Emerald Embrace had lost its physical hold over me but roused my keenest intellectual curiosity. With the elderly scholar, I matched the hieroglyphs on the falcon’s body with ones on the Rosetta stone, using the Greek words in an attempt to decipher them … maybe these delicate and unreadable pictographs told Lady Nefer’s origins, maybe here was the validation for Father’s theory. The quiet afternoons passed swiftly.
One purple October twilight I returned home to have Stephen answer the door. As he helped me off with my coat, he said, “My work in Paris is finished.”
“We have Martinique port privileges?”
“Exactly as President Monroe wants.”
“How wonderful!” I tiptoed to kiss his tanned cheek. “Congratulations.”
“Ensign Barron’s taking the treaty home for congressional ratification.”
Holding my high-crowned bonnet by its heliotrope ribbons, I stared at him. “But Stephen, why don’t you take it?”
He turned away. “Liberty, I must talk to you. Come into the salon.”
Applewood logs blazed cozily in the fireplace. I put the jewel case on the little gilded table and sat on a low blue silk chair, looking at him expectantly.
“I’ve given this a huge amount of thought,” he said. “There’s one matter I must attend to before we go home and are married.”
The Emerald Embrace Page 27
