by Grace Walton
His dignity forbade begging so he chose to barrel ahead. “For Aurora's protection, you must marry her by proxy. Bassett has prepared a will for you. It makes her your heir. If you come out of this alive, and she's suffered no harm,” he said to the floor. “I'll tear up my copy of your will and the marriage lines as well. You, of course, will be free to do the same.”
Having finished, Graham felt absolutely light-headed with relief. It wasn't easy confronting a man as formidable as St. John. Windsor waited for the aristocrat’s explosion of wrath, satisfied that he had made a strong stand for his sister's rights. When nothing happened, the seaman screwed up his courage and faced his adversary.
St. John’s tightened jaw and narrowed eyes demonstrated the depth of his composure. He spoke in a quiet, lethal manner, “I've no intention of getting myself killed in the foreseeable future. And I am generally considered discreet. Fabricated lies in the scandal sheets notwithstanding. So, all your hysterical posturing boils down to is one simple threat. Either I keep my vulgar hands off your lily-white sister, or I'll find myself well and truly married.”
Windsor had found himself in many tight situations during his years at sea. But never had he felt so threatened as he did by St. John's calm inquiry. Summoning up all the strength of character at his command, he answered baldly, “Yes.”
“I thought so,” St. John replied. He smiled politely, although there was no warmth inherent in the gesture, only serious single‑minded intent. “And what guarantee do you offer me to ensure that your sister will not try to ensure the permanence of this ill-conceived marriage?”
“Sir, you are insulting,” blustered an incensed Windsor.
“Frequently,” agreed St. John as he gazed unconcerned at his ring. “But my question still stands, and I now require your answer sir.”
An aggrieved Captain Windsor replied with some heat, “Blast your eyes St. John. Two things protect you completely. One is her faith, and the other is the Jew.”
“The Jew?” repeated his adversary as one ebony eyebrow flew upward.
“Yes, Abraham Gottlieb, he's been begging her to marry him regularly for the last four years. He'll never let her truly slip from his grasp.”
“And his religion poses a problem for you,” stated St. John coldly.
“No,” Windsor said and snorted in disgust. “He's my business partner. And a finer man never walked God's green earth. No, it’s Aurora. She won't marry him. She says she won't be unequally yoked.”
“Unequally yoked?” The question hung in the air between them.
“Aurora takes her faith very seriously. She'll never marry unless she knows the man is a Christian.”
“Then she'll never marry me,” mocked St. John.
“That's precisely my point,” insisted the sailor. “I've always thought she's just waiting for Bram to see the light.”
“See the light?”
“Convert to Christianity,” he patiently continued. “Bram has always been there for her, especially when I've not. All those years I was at sea, he was there. Teaching her to ride, sail, dance, and a hundred other things that older brothers teach their baby sisters. My wife Rozelle raised Aurora, for the most part. When she died, I was so wrapped up in my own grieving, I just forgot about Rory. He helped her make one of those bloody rose pearls of hers for Rozelle. I was useless to her, totally useless.” His eyes were suspiciously bright as he hauled a rough square of linen out of his coat pocket. He used it to loudly blow his nose.
Dylan felt sudden compassion for the seaman. He himself had a younger sister raised far away by others, little-known but greatly loved. “Rose pearls?”
“Yes, every time she loses someone or something she loves, she makes a black bead from the roses in her garden. She calls them rose pearls. She wears the bloody things on a gold chain around her neck.”
“And does she wear many of these black rose pearls?” asked Dylan thoughtfully.
“Yes, curse it all, too many for her years.” Was the muffled answer he heard from behind the handkerchief.
Making his decision, St. John rose unhurriedly from his seat and addressed the silent Commissioner of Peace, “Arthur, when do I celebrate my marriage to Captain Windsor's deserving young sister?”
“This afternoon, here at four o'clock,” replied an obviously much relieved Bassett.
“Then gentlemen, I'll attend you at four.” Dylan reached out. He firmly grasped Graham Windsor's hand. “Captain Windsor does your sister Aurora favor you?” he inquired as he shook the other man's hand.
“No,” replied Windsor, “We had different mothers you see.” He took a small watch case from his fob pocket. Flipping it open, he handed it to the man beside him.
St. John studied the miniature portrait, hidden in the gold case. His heart stuttered in his chest. The delicate painting depicted a sweet-faced and innocent young woman. A curious and unearthly peace stole over him. He looked at Aurora Windsor once again. Somehow he knew she would be his destiny. He was intrigued. No, not intrigued. Ensnared, enthralled, perhaps even something he’d not been in years. Vulnerable. Unsettled, he snapped the watch case closed and handed it back to Windsor.
Chapter Two
Dylan and Lysander spent the remainder of that morning in a fever of productive activity. Each detail concerning his business was dispatched with meticulous professional detachment by Dylan. If this journey ended with his death, his brother Griffin was to be immediately notified he was the newly appointed director of St. John shipping lines.
Lysander was equally well-employed. St. John House, the residence in Mayfair, was to be closed in their absence. A skeleton staff would maintain the kitchen and stable. But the knocker was to be unscrewed from the street entrance.
The other servants would be transported to the estate in Scotland. This caused alarm and murmurs of disapproval. No one wanted to travel to that frigid backwater in the middle of winter.
“Yes,” the black man said with a straight face when he told them of the move. “I’m quite sure the winters are milder in Scotland than they are here in London. Why only last Boxing Day Mr. St. John and I were out and about in Edinburgh in our shirtsleeves.” With these lies and a good deal of finger prodding, the staff was sent to begin loading the coaches for their sojourn in Scotland.
After speaking with them, he took himself up the grand curving staircase to the master’s bedchamber to begin Dylan’s packing. “Shirtsleeves,” muttered Lysander grimly as he climbed. “We were up to our knees in a ditch full of frozen mud trying to pry the coach wheels loose. Scotland in winter,” he said, his brown face twisting with distaste, “Never again.”
Dylan found the man busily going through the drawers of a fashionable Sheraton dressing chest. The man was obviously examining the contents with an eye as to what must make the trip and what would remain behind. St. John shrugged his broad shoulders out of the superfine riding coat and tossed it onto the massive carved bed. One lean hand was buried within the intricate snowy folds of his cravat intent on ridding his throat of its bondage. He walked across the Aubusson carpet to join Lysander by the dressing chest.
Sander snorted and rolled his eyes. His quick, efficient movements became almost violent. He dragged a pile of snowy linen from one of the drawers.
“What?” demanded Dylan as he dropped the mangled neckcloth to the floor.
“That jacket you just threw on the bed costs more than the cook makes in a year. And it took me twenty minutes. Twenty minutes mind you, to tie that blasted scrap of a neck binding around your cursed throat this morning,” the black man complained and pointed to the rumpled mess at his friend’s feet.
“And yet, it only took me two minutes to untie it. What does that tell you about our respective intelligences?” Dylan goaded. He slumped bonelessly into a sturdy gold and maroon brocade chair. The chair, stationed near the floor to ceiling Palladian windows faced a walled back garden.
The older man stopped rummaging in the deep drawer and joined his friend
by the windows. “I don’t want to go to Georgia.”
“Then don’t go. Stay here and keep the Cook company. I hear she asks after you constantly.” Dylan grinned wickedly. “She’s been casting out lures lately. I’ve been told.”
“You know I can’t leave you to go off on another of your hey-go-mad starts by yourself.”
“Not that again,” sighed Dylan looking out through the rippled glass at the winter dead garden. “Just last night you were harping about going home to America. Well, here’s your chance. You should be delighted.” He stopped, then continued slowly and carefully as one does with a backward child. “It’ll be warm in Savannah Sander. Or would you rather stay and escort the footmen, and tweenies to Scotland? I’m sure we could squeeze you into one of the coaches, perhaps with the luggage. Do you remember the last time we traveled to Scotland?” Seeing the expression of revulsion on the other man’s face Dylan laughed. “I see you do remember.”
Lysander was greatly offended by this kind of cavalier treatment and retaliated in kind. “Oh, shut up, you bloody half-wit,” he sourly ordered. “Think Dylan,” responded the other in a perfect imitation of his friend. “You’ll be arriving in Savannah as yourself, rich, influential Dylan St. John. I’ll be arriving as Lysander, St. John’s slave. It’ll be Yes Mastuh and No Mastuh and Whatever y’all say Mastuh.”
“Go as my secretary. That worked well enough in Spain last spring,” reasoned Dylan.
“It’s against the law for a black man to own a dog in Georgia, much less learn how to read and write. You know that.” Lysander’s exasperated hand raked through his spongy black curls.
Tiring of the game, Dylan’s voice was curt. “Go as yourself, I’ve always hated these ridiculous charades you insist upon playing.”
“I can just hear how you’ll introduce me to our hostess.” His chocolate face took on an air of aristocratic boredom, and the timbre of his voice rose an octave as he spoke, “Ah yes, so good to meet you Mrs. Trueblood. I’m pleased to present to you my uncle Lysander Goodman. He’s from the distaff African branch of the family, don’t you know.”
“Enough,” spat out St. John.
“The truth hurts, doesn’t it?”
“I’m not jesting Sander.”
“Neither am I. Still and all, it’s not your fault Grandfather MacAllister never fully grasped the concept of monogamy. And, I have a nice little scar from the last time you introduced me as your uncle. I think I’ll decline the honor this go round.”
“That was nineteen bleeding years ago.”
“Yes, and I’ve no wish to repeat the experience. How could five effete sprigs of the British Aristocracy so thoroughly trounce a twenty-three-year-old man?” Lysander mused from behind steepled fingers.
“Quite easily, you wouldn’t fight back and I couldn’t take them all on by myself.” Dylan’s light mood was restored by the memory. “As I recall, we both sported several cricket bat shaped bruises the next day.”
“Fortunately for you, I left Eton the next day hanging from the back of your other uncle’s carriage dressed in saffron livery. It’s just as well, I look good in yellow and I couldn’t have a fourteen-year-old boy forever defending me.” His velvet brown eyes danced with amusement.
“I hated Eton,” volunteered St. John.
“I hated your grandfather’s country house.”
Dylan rose from the chair to his full height. He stretched solidly muscled shoulders and arms before crossing the room back to the dressing chest. “Uncle, I suggest you masquerade in Savannah as anything you sodding well please. Just leave the role of my wife alone.” Dylan began to efficiently, if not neatly, dump half the contents of each drawer into a scarred and ancient sea chest.
“Your wife?”
“I’m getting married this afternoon. Wish me happy.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Neither do I Sander,” he said as he fastened the latch on the chest. “Neither do I.”
“Who is she? How long have you known her?”
“Aurora Windsor,” he said slowly, savoring the sound of the name. “And I don’t know her.”
“She sounds like a cheap opera dancer.”
“She is definitely not cheap.” He chuckled, thinking of the will.
“Bassett put you up to this, didn’t he?”
“It’s necessary.” Dylan walked to the graceful windows and stared stoically out. He tapped the rippled glass to punctuate each word. “But thank God it’s not permanent.”
“This is insanity, Dylan.”
“I agree, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m getting married today.” It was a dismissal.
Lysander started to leave the room, but paused at the open door and mocked, “Yes Sir, Mastuh Dylan, whatever y’all say.” He then quickly slammed the door in order to avoid being brained by a gentleman’s black evening slipper hurled with great force and greater accuracy across the room at his head.
At four o’clock that same afternoon, five men converged on Arthur Bassett’s cozy den in the City to complete what could only be termed a contractual agreement. No words of love, faithfulness, or even good will were either spoken or written. Bassett anxiously worried his right ear throughout the entire ceremony.
Lysander stood by his nephew shaking his head in disgust throughout the entire proceedings. Dylan standing at ease gave all the suitable responses in a deep bored voice. A greasy magistrate with gin reddened eyes presided over the whole affair.
Graham Windsor was obviously distracted, shifting his sturdy bulk from one uneasy foot to another. His every emotion showed on his craggy face. A collection of distress, regret, satisfaction, and dread all appeared there.
When all the correct words were spoken, and all the necessary duplicate documents were signed and witnessed, the disreputable judge was ushered with some speed from the room by Bassett. The Commissioner returned frowning. He busied himself pouring drinks into four crystal Waterford snifters. These he gave to the other men.
He raised his glass and gravely toasted, “Gentlemen, to success.” They all nodded and drank.
“To my wife, may she never be burdened with the knowledge she holds that title,” asserted St. John.
In Savannah
“Rory Windsor it is such a treat to see you again,” simpered the overblown debutante. She was sitting in a town carriage looking down her pointy nose at the young woman standing in the middle of the muddy Savannah street.
“It’s a pleasure to see you too, Rebekah.” Rory blushed wishing once again that she had heeded Tirzah’s advice and dressed more appropriately before she’d ridden into town. Nothing about her clothing was revealing. But nothing about it was conventional either.
She wore her nephew’s cast off britches, a coat that swallowed her, and a pair of brown boots that had seen better days. She was dressed as she always was, as a scruffy boy.
“Bram said he was bringing you to our assembly in a fortnight.” The lovely Jewish girl said. Her dress was in the latest Grecian fashion. Her thick black hair covered her head in a riot of the short corkscrew curls that seemed to be the newest style.
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it Rebekah,” Rory mumbled. If it was up to her, she’d never attend an assembly again. Not after the last time. It wasn’t her fault Aubrey Overstreet had tumbled into the fountain in the garden. He shouldn’t have tried to put his hand up her skirt.
“Rory you’re never going to find a man if you keep avoiding social events.”
“I’m not trying to find a man,” Rory said as her lavish lips thinned. Lately it seemed that all Rebekah talked about were matrimonial prospects.
“Every woman needs a man,” Rebekah said with a startling amount of venom. “Men run the world and a woman has nothing if she’s not married.”
“I’m never getting married,” Rory said. “My life is perfectly blessed as it is.”
“Don’t you want children?” the Jewish girl asked scandalized.
Rory knew she
couldn’t tell the truth. She had responsibility for more children than she could pray over already. But she couldn’t bring herself to tell a lie. So she changed the subject.
“Would you like Tirzah to come help at your assembly? She makes the most wonderful crab patties. I’m sure I could ask her, and she’d agree to help.” Rory crossed her fingers behind her back.
Tirzah, the family’s black housekeeper, was as much her mother as the long dead woman who had brought her into the world. Tirzah didn’t like the Jewish family. She’d work for the Gottliebs for one night. But she’d make them pay dearly for her services.
“That’s another thing I just don’t understand about you Windsors,” Rebekah’s voice grated. “Why in the world do you refuse to own slaves? It’s much cheaper than paying all those free blacks who live out there with you on your bleak little island.”
“Windsor’s Island is not bleak,” Rory defended. “And I don’t like it when you call them free blacks. Some of those folks are as white as you and I.”
“They’ve all got African blood. That makes them as good as slaves. No matter how much you and your brother coddle them.”
“We don’t coddle anybody. They are family.”
“I wonder what your husband will have to say about the odd miscellany that is your family?”
“I told you, I’m not getting married.”
Chapter Three
The voyage across the Atlantic was both boring and uneventful. Windsor developed a respect for his passengers, if not a true warm friendship. Lysander perfected the disguise he intended to use upon their arrival in Savannah. St. John tried to extract every bit of useful information he could about the coastal area in general and Miss Aurora Windsor, in particular, from the sailors of the Rozelle. Years of experience as an agent Provocateur had taught him that knowledge was frequently more powerful than weapons.
