[GOD08] The Lost Gentleman

by Margaret McPhee

So soon? Inside her guilt scraped at her again. She took a breath. Nodded. ‘An hour,’ she said with a calmness that belied all that was vying and fighting beneath.

  ‘Remember to remove your wedding band.’

  Her eyes met his in horror at the realisation. Her hand clutched to it to keep it there, the thought of taking it from her finger too much to bear.

  He rose from his chair and walked away, closing the parlour door behind him.

  She stared at the cup of cold coffee, scarcely able to believe how much her world had just turned upside down. She felt as though she had been standing in the middle of a quiet dusty street on a lazy sunny afternoon only to be hit, without the slightest whisper of warning, by a speeding mail coach.

  In an hour she would marry the pirate hunter Kit North. The man for whom her body thrilled and longed, and her heart ached, and the man for whom she would betray the memory of Wendell and all she had sworn.

  * * *

  The scene was like something from a comedy. In the small country church of All Hallows the early summer sun flooded through the stained-glass windows to bathe the worn and ancient flagstones of the floor in a rainbow of heavenly light. Wooden carved statues of beatified martyrs and the Holy Virgin looked down with gentle expressions. Kit wondered how gentle their expressions would be if they could see the congregation that lined the pews of their church.

  Raven’s crew looked like the motley bunch of ex-pirates they were. Every one of them was armed to the teeth with pistols and knives. But they had smoothed their hair and wiped the dirt from their faces. Their jackets had been brushed and the dust washed from their feet. Most were even wearing shoes. Kit felt both proud and humbled by the sight of them standing there with their backs straight and their heads bowed in a house of God.

  By his side Gunner was calm and serene, his expression so gentle, yet the way the priest before them in his black robes was sweating and the slight tremor in the Common Book of Prayer gripped so tightly between his fat white fingers told Kit that some degree of persuasion had indeed been required. Whatever Gunner had done, the sweating priest had found a way to overcome the not-inconsiderable obstacles of no banns being read and neither the bride or groom, nor a single one of the guests, being of his parish. Old Pete Pinksy was standing at the side with the flageolet on his lips, playing hymns softly.

  ‘Had I known he knew such music aboard Raven...’ Gunner whispered with a smile.

  And then Old Pete stopped, and started playing ‘The Queen of Love.’ And Kit knew without Gunner’s whisper that Kate had arrived.

  He resisted the urge to look round, just kept his face pointed forward and tried not to think of her expression of horror when she had realised that she was going to have to marry him. He did not want this any more than she did, but he had brought her here and promised her safe passage home, and it was true that he did not need anything else on his conscience.

  Marry her. Face Admiralty. Send her back to Louisiana. Then he could draw a line under all that had happened with her and return to his life in London. It was simple. It was the right thing to do. For the sake of two innocent children. Nothing else. He gritted his teeth and closed his ears to the other things that whispered within, the things to which he could not allow himself to listen, would not allow himself to listen.

  The music was coming to a close. He should not have looked round, but he did, seeing her walking those last few paces that would bring her to stand by his side. Her face was pale. She was wearing the black silk dress from her Antiguan wardrobe and her black fichu, clothes for a funeral, not a wedding.

  Her only concession to the occasion was the small posy of wild pink briar roses that she clutched between her hands, their sweet perfume subtle and fresh in the mustiness and polish of the old church. Her tawny hair glowed golden in the sunlight, but her eyes were a resolute grey and they were filled with a determination and courage that no bride should have to wear as she walked down the aisle.

  She was not alone. Young Tom walked in her father’s place by her side. Kit saw the way the boy held his head up and the thin shoulders squared with pride at the honour of being chosen out of all the crew to perform this task of a man. The lad’s eye caught Kit’s and he grinned, his pleasure like a fountain flowing out of him to spread all around, such a stark contrast to the guarded look in Kate’s eyes. Difficult though this time was for her, she had thought of the boy. Hers was the strongest of hearts, but it was gentle, too. There was not another woman in the world like Kate Medhurst. Had he not been the man he was... Had this marriage been in earnest... Had she not still been in love with her dead husband...

  Her eyes met his, and he felt something tighten in his chest. The dust motes drifted between them like it was an otherworld scene. Kit called on his strongest reserves and with a will of iron turned his face forward once more. His gaze, cold and hard, moved to the fat priest.

  ‘Marry us,’ he commanded.

  And the man did.

  Kit went through the ceremony. Her fingers were cold within his, Wendell Medhurst’s ring gone in material, but its presence still symbolised by the thin pale band of skin its absence had left beneath. He slid on his own ring to cover it.

  Her eyes welled. Her lip trembled. She caught it between her teeth, biting on it to control the emotion, all of it for the dead man she still loved, a man with whom Kit could never compete.

  He did not look at her again. Just said the words that made her his wife in the eyes of the church and the law and heard her voice soft and husky make the same vows.

  They signed their names in the parish book. No one commented that he signed Northcote and not North, just as they said nothing over the name spoken during the ceremony.

  They were man and wife in law. For now.

  A marriage made easily enough and to be undone just as easily when the time came.

  He kept his heart hard and cold. Because it was the only way he knew to survive.

  * * *

  Kate brushed her hand over her skirt, the same black silk in which she had been married not seven hours since, as if she would smooth away invisible creases. The afternoon sun glinted in through the window of the corridor in the Admiralty building, lighting the men that sat patiently waiting seated on the rows of hard wooden chairs still dressed in their best from the morning. All of Raven’s crew had come to support their captain and gain their share of the bounty.

  The worn old gold band on her finger glowed in the sunlight, light and bright against the darkness of the silk. Her hand stilled. She stared at the ring that Wendell had put there, the ring that she had sworn never to remove. Kit’s larger ring was looped on to a thin leather lace tied beneath the fichu. The gold lay between her breasts, hidden well out of sight alongside her heart. No one had noticed the switch so far and she hoped no one would, but she slipped on her small lace day gloves, just in case.

  The slow steady tick of the tall clock in the corner of the room resonated through her body. It seemed that Kit had been in that office for an age. What if there was a problem? What if the Lord Admiral did not believe he had delivered them La Voile? What if they were refusing to pay him the bounty, with all his men sitting here waiting expectantly for their share of the hard-earned coin?

  The air was too warm, the palms of her hands beneath the gloves already growing clammy. She smoothed a hand over her skirt again and was about to ask Gunner how long these things normally took when the office door opened and the young naval officer who had shown Kit in appeared once more.

  ‘Reverend Dr Gunner, the first Lord of the Admiralty will see you now, sir.’

  Gunner smiled his meek smile at the smartly uniformed younger man and, with a nod, rose and followed him into the office.

  * * *

  Eventually Gunner returned and then each of Raven’s crew in turn were called within that office. The process took so long
that Kate could feel her body tense all the more with growing worry. There was none of the usual convivial chatter and teasing. No jokes, just a feeling of absolute tension and importance, as if they all stood lined up at a cliff edge with a sheer drop on to jagged rocks beneath.

  What if Kit had got it wrong and they meant to imprison her, after all?

  What if they imprisoned him for trying to help her? She was an enemy of the state now, after all; a foreign combatant in their midst and that was before they knew anything of Le Voile. A feeling of panic twisted in her stomach.

  ‘What will I say to them when it is my turn?’ Little Tom, sitting by her side, whispered the question and looked up at her with a pale face and worry in his eyes.

  She wanted to take his little hand in her own or put an arm around him, but she knew that would only embarrass the boy before the men of the crew. So she just smiled at him as if there was not a jitter in her body and told the lie calmly. ‘There is nothing to fear. Just answer their questions with the truth.’

  He relaxed and returned the smile with a nod of his head.

  When Tom disappeared into the office and the crew all sat there in silence, she heard Briggs across the waiting room murmur, ‘It’s like the bleedin’ Spanish inquisition in there.’ And despite all she had told Tom she could feel the fear tighten in her lungs and tremble in her nostrils. Her hands clung tight together. She closed her eyes to try to control her nerves.

  ‘Stout heart,’ she heard Gunner whisper by her ear.

  He was a kind man. A gentle man. A priest. And he did not know how much she was hiding, or how much Kit was risking, and all that was in danger of being discovered.

  And then Tom came back with a relieved grin and the young naval officer was saying, ‘Mrs North.’

  In the expectant silence all faces turned to her and only then did she realise.

  ‘Mrs North,’ the officer said again and she realised that she was Mrs North and no longer Medhurst; no longer Wendell’s name, but Kit’s. Another pang of guilt twisted deep within.

  Taking a deep breath, she followed the young officer into the first Lord of the Admiralty’s office, to play her part in this masquerade.

  Just answer their questions with the truth. In order to save herself and the man who was now her husband, Kate had to do anything but.

  * * *

  ‘So Captain North rescued you from Coyote and the pirate La Voile,’ Mr Charles Philip Yorke, the First Lord of the Admiralty and president of the Board of Admiralty, said once Kate was seated.

  ‘Indeed, sir. He rescued me from Le Voile.’

  And the significance of what she had just said was not lost on Kit. Le Voile.

  Everything about her was easy, relaxed, confident. That same air that sat about her always, Le Voile, the veil, in truth, except in those few rare moments when the two of them were alone and she had let the veil drop away to reveal the vulnerability of the woman beneath.

  She was feigning it. He watched her and felt that same respect he had always felt for her. She had more courage than most men he knew.

  There was a silence while Yorke steepled his fingers and held her gaze.

  Kate returned his gaze, calm and steady.

  ‘And how did you come to be aboard Coyote?’ Yorke asked.

  Kit waited for her answer. There had been no time for rehearsals or to agree a story between them. He just had to trust that she would tell it in the same way he had.

  ‘How does a respectable woman normally come to be aboard a pirate ship?’ she said quietly and kept her gaze on Yorke’s, almost daring him to be so insensitive and brash as to ask her the details of what everyone imagined the pirate had done to the woman he had abducted.

  Kit reached his hand to hers and gave it a little squeeze. ‘To discuss the details of the matter distresses my wife,’ he said coolly and knew that he was not lying. He felt a wave of protectiveness for her. My wife.

  Yorke cleared his throat. ‘Of course.’ He had already heard from his crew that La Voile had been seen treating her roughly on Coyote’s deck.

  ‘And once you were aboard Raven with Captain North...’ Kit could see the way the man’s mind was working. He thought that Kit had compromised her, taken advantage of her and been left with having to do the honourable thing by wedding her.

  ‘I found a man of integrity and honour.’ She glanced across at Kit, her eyes meeting his. ‘A man whom I admire and respect.’

  More lies or the truth?

  Silence.

  ‘And you were married only this morning. The day the nation learns that America has declared war on England.’

  ‘We were,’ she answered, unruffled by the unspoken implication in his words. But every man of his crew had told the First Lord of the Admiralty the same story—that their captain and Mrs Medhurst had declared their betrothal on their first day ashore.

  Yorke gave a nod. ‘Thank you, that will be all, Mrs North.’ He got to his feet alongside Kit as she left, treating her like the lady she was. Only once she was gone and the door closed behind her did he resume his seat and speak again.

  ‘I will have the remainder of the payment released to you and your men before you leave. There is, of course, no question of your wife being interned. You are deemed guarantor for her.’

  Kit nodded. ‘Thank you.’

  There was a silence as Yorke’s eyes raked his. ‘I did not realise you were William Northcote’s son.’ He could hear the slight rebuke in the older man’s voice and see the shift in attitude from respect to something very different. The first portent of what was to come.

  ‘I did not expect that you did.’ Kit bowed and returned to his men and his wife.

  * * *

  Within the rented house in Grosvenor Street Kate stood by the window, looking out over the quiet road. London, with its sprawl and its streets with rows of town houses with their stonework and Palladian style, was quite literally a world away from Tallaholm with its wide dusty single street and her wooden homestead out on the edge of town.

  The bounty had been divided and Raven’s crew paid their share. The cart with its great wooden butt and gruesome contents had gone. She did not want to think of what they would do to Tobias’s body. No matter what she had thought of him, he was still a fellow American.

  The day’s difficulty had not been helped by having to feign a true marriage, before all those at the Admiralty and in the hours after. But she had done it both for fear that word might get back to the Admiralty and because she did not want to destroy the happiness that the crew and Gunner and young Tom had over the union. Gunner had taken Tom with him for the night, leaving the newlywed couple alone for their wedding night.

  Now, as they stood in the drawing room of the house Kit had rented, she felt as nervous as the green girl in the rough-hewn bedroom of the farmhouse that Wendell had taken her back to after their wedding seven long years ago.

  She turned to face Kit. ‘So what happens now?’

  He stood by the great marble fireplace, the toe of one boot resting on the fender guard, the wrist of one arm resting on the pale carved marble that made the mantelshelf. He looked not at her, but into the empty grate.

  ‘Now we keep up the pretence of living as a happily married couple until the Admiralty’s surveillance wanes and Gunner’s business is concluded.’

  ‘You think they really will keep their eyes on us.’

  ‘I know they will. You are American. And I am—’ He stopped abruptly, biting back whatever it was he would have said. ‘My family might be genteel, but I am something of an untrusted entity.’

  Because he had once been a pirate, she supposed. But they had trusted him enough to let him turn hunter.

  ‘How long will it take?’ Only once the words were out did she realise how they sounded—that she was desperate to be gone
from him and on her way home to Louisiana. The latter was true, the former was not.

  He turned then, and looked at her. ‘A little over a fortnight.’ His voice was cool.

  She gave a nod, glanced away and, twiddling her wedding band, swallowed. She saw his eyes flick to her left hand and the gold ring upon her finger that was not the one that he had put there, before coming back up to her face. He made not one comment upon the exchange but his expression was as closed and as unreadable as the first day she had seen him standing on Raven’s deck.

  ‘Console yourself with the fact that we must play our parts as husband and wife only when we are being observed. Rest assured I will not inflict my presence on you a moment longer than necessary.’

  ‘Kit...’ Her fingers twisted harder at the gold band.

  His eyes held hers, waiting, giving her the chance to explain. He could not know how much she wanted to, or at least try to. But even just to say the words would have been to betray Wendell and she could not do it. And in the stretching silence any chance was lost, swallowed up into something else.

  He gave a bitter smile as if he understood, when in truth he understood nothing at all.

  ‘Matthews, the butler, will give you a tour of the house and attend to your every need. If you will excuse me...?’

  She should have stopped him. She should have told him.

  He bowed and walked away, leaving her standing there. She heard the thud of the front door closing, its echo ringing in the emptiness of the house around her.

  Everything was as she had wanted—she had been saved from internment, her passage back to Louisiana was guaranteed, Kit would annul the marriage once it had served its purpose, and he was leaving her alone, with her loyalty to Wendell. But she had never felt more empty and solitary.

  She sat down in one of the drawing room’s little armchairs and looked at Wendell’s wedding ring upon her finger. And she did not understand why when she was trying so hard to do this right, it felt so wrong.

  * * *

  After his business with the bank he walked to Whitechapel and stood there in the dusky light outside the place in Half Moon Alley where he had sold his soul to the devil and destroyed his world and that of his family. It was a shabby, filthy-looking hovel with boarded-up windows and the scent of piss and stale ale and pipe smoke hanging around the doorway. It always had been, but Kit Northcote had been too blind to see the reality. He had seen only excitement in a life of privileged boredom and the chance to make himself look big in the eyes of others.